DYMONJDJ 


WITH^:S 


I NTROD U CTORY  WORDS 


JOHN  BRIGHT 


1 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 
ERNEST  CARROLL  MOORE 


V 


WAR. 


AN    ESSAY 

BY 

JONATHAN    DYMOND. 


WITH 

INTRODUCTORY   WORDS 

BY 

JOHN     BRIGHT, 

OF   ENGLAND. 

FOURTH    EDITION. 


FRIENDS'  BOOK  AND  TRACT  COMMITTEE, 

No.  51,  Fifth  Avenue, 

NEW  YORK. 


NOTE. 

In  reprinting  this  Essay,  the  Editors  desire  to  remind 
its  readers  that  it  is  only  one  of  a  series  of  Essays  on 
Christian  Morality  by  the  same  gifted  writer,  and  that'the 
others  are  characterized  by  the  same  clear  and  cogent 
reasoning  so  noteworthy  in  the  one  now  published.  In 
preparing  the  Essay  on  War  for  tlie  press,  they  have 
thought  it  best  here  and  there  to  alter  a  word  or  sentence, 
or  to  omit  a  passage  or  note,  with  a  view  to  either  modern 
usage,  clearness,  brevity,  or  changed  conditions  ;  but  they 
have  in  no  case  interfered  with  the  author's  argument, 
either  in  its  management  or  development.  They  desire 
earnestly  to  commend  the  Essay  to  the  careful  and  un- 
prejudiced consideration  of  all  thoughtful  people. 


oy 


INTRODUCTORY    WORDS  M 

BY   THE  I    O    r.O 

RIGHT    HON.    JOHN    BRIGHT; 

AVITII    PASSAGES   FROM 

HIS     SPEECHES, 

REVISED    BY    HIMSELF    FOR    THIS    EDITION. 


T    KNOW  of  110  better   book  dealing  with   morals  as 
applied  to  nations  than  Dymond's  Essays.     As  the 
world   becomes  more   Christian,  this  book   will  be  more 
widely  read,  and  the  name  of  its  author  more  revered. 

I  have  been  asked  on  several  occasions,  "What  do  you 
think  about  the  doctrine  of  the  Peace  Society,  or  of  your 
own  Religious  Body,  in  their  opposition  to  all  War  however 
necessary  or  however  just  it  may  seem  to  be,  or  however 
much  you  are  provoked  and  injured  ? "  I  think  every  man 
must  make  up  his  own  mind  on  that  abstract  principle ; 
and  I  would  recommend  him,  if  he  wants  to  know  a  book 
that  says  a  good  deal  upon  it,  to  study  the  New  Testament, 
and  make  up  his  mind  from  that  source. 

It  will  be  time  enough  perhaps  to  discuss  that  question 

15901.84 


iv.  INTRODUCTORY  WORDS. 

when  we  have  abandoned  everything  that  can  be  called 
unjust  and  unnecessary  in  the  way  of  War.  Now,  I 
believe,  that  with  wise  counsels,  great  statesmen,  large 
knowledge  of  affairs  combined  with  Christian  principle, 
there  is  prabably  not  a  single  war  in  which  we  have  been 
engaged  from  the  time  of  William  III.  that  might  not  have 
been  without  difficulty  avoided  ;  and  our  military  system 
might  have  been  kept  in  great  moderation,  our  National 
Debt  would  never  have  accumulated,  our  population  would 
have  been  a  great  deal  less  barbarous  anti  less  ignorant 
than  they  are,  and  everything  that  tends  to  the  true 
grandeur  and  prosperity  and  happiness  of  the  people  would 
have  been  infinitely  advanced  beyond  or  above  what  we  see 
now  in  our  own  time. 

I  think  we  ought  to  begin  to  ask  ourselves  how  it  is  that 
Christian  nations — that  this  Christian  nation — should  be 
involved  in  so  many  wars.  If  we  may  presume  to  ask  our- 
selves, what,  in  the  eye  of  the  Supreme  Ruler,  is  the 
greatest  crime  which  His  creatures  commit,  I  think  we 
may  almost  with  certainty  conclude  that  it  is  the  crime  of 
War.  Somebody  has  described  it  as  "the  sum  of  all 
villainies  " ;  and  it  has  been  the  cause  of  sufferings,  misery, 
and  slaughter,  which  neither  tongue  nor  pen  can  ever 
describe.     And  all  this  has  been   going  on  for  eighteen 


INTRODUCTORY    WORDS.  v. 

hundred  years  after  men  have  adopted  the  religion  whose 
Founder  and  whose  Head  is  denominated  the  Prince  of 
Peace.  It  was  announced  as  a  religion  which  was  intended 
to  bring  "Peace  on  earth,  and  good  will  towards  men"  ; 
and  yet,  after  all  these  years,  the  peace  on  earth  has  not 
come,  and  the  goodwill  among  men  is  only  partially  and 
occasionally  exhibited  ;  and  amongst  nations  we  find 
almost  no  trace  of  it  century  after  century. 

Now  in  this  country  we  have  a  great  institution  called 
the  Established  Church.  I  suppose  that  great  institution 
numbers  twenty  thousand  or  more  places  of  worship 
in  various  parts  of  the  kingdom.  I  think  this  does  not 
include  what  there  are  in  Scotland,  and  what  there  are 
in  Ireland.  With  these  twenty  thousand  churches  there 
are  at  least  twenty  thousand  men,  educated  and  for  the 
most  part  Christian  men,  anxious  to  do  their  duty  as 
teachers  of  the  religion  of  peace  ;  and  besides  these,  there 
are  twenty  thousand  other  churches  which  are  not  con- 
nected with  the  Established  institution,  but  have  been 
built,  and  are  maintained,  by  that  large  portion  of  the 
people  who  go  generally  under  the  name  of  Dissenters  or 
Nonconformists  :  and  they  have  their  twenty  thousand 
ministers ;  also  men,  many  of  them,  as  well  educated,  as 
truly  Christian  and  devoted  men,  as  the  others ;  and  they 


vi.  INTRODUCTORY  WORDS. 

are  at  work  continually  from  day  to  day,  and  they  preach 
from  Sabbath  to  Sabbath  what  they  believe  to  be  the 
doctrines  of  the  Prince  of  Peace  ;  and  yet,  notwithstanding 
all  that,  we  have  more  than  £30,000,000  a  year  spent  by 
this  country  in  sustaining  armies  and  navies,  in  view  of 
wars  which,  it  is  assumed,  may  suddenly  and  soon  take 
place.  Now,  why  is  this,  I  should  like  to  ask  :  for  all 
these  teachers  and  preachers  profess  to  be  the  servants  of 
the  Most  High  God,  and  teachers  of  the  doctrines  of  His 
Divine  Son  ;  and  being  such,  may  I  not  appeal  to  them 
and  say — What  have  you,  forty  or  fifty  thousand  men, 
with  such  vast  influence,  what  have  you  been  doing  with 
this  great  question  during  all  the  years  that  you  have 
ministered,  and  called  yourselves  the  ministers  of  the 
Prince  of  Peace  ? 

And  I  would  not  confine  my  appeal  to  the  ministers  only, 
but  to  the  devout  men  of  every  church  and  every  chapel, 
who  surround  the  minister  and  uphold  his  hands  ;  who  do 
in  many  things  his  bidding,  and  who  join  him  heartily  and 
conscientiously  in  his  work, — I  say,  what  are  they  doing  ? 
Why  is  it  that  there  has  never  been  a  combination  of  all 
religious  and  Christian  teachers  of  the  country,  with  a  view 
of  teaching  the  people  what  is  true,  what  is  Christian,  upon 
the  subject? 


INTRODUCTORY   WORDS.  vii. 

I^believe  it  lies  within  the  power  of  the  churches  to  do 
far  more  than  statesmen  can  do  in  matters  of  this  kind.  I 
believe  they  might  (so  brings  this  question  home  to  the 
hearts^and  consciences  of  the  Christian  and  good  men  and 
women  of  their  congregations,  that  a  great  combination  of 
public  opinion  might  be  created,  which  would  wholly  change 
the  aspect  of  this  question  in  this  country  and  before  the 
world,  and  would  bring  to  the  minds  of  statesmen  that  they 
are  not  the  rulers  of  the  people  of  Greece,  or  of  the  maraud- 
ing hordes  of  ancient  Rome,  but  that  they  are,  or  ought  to 
be,  the  Christian  rulers  of  a  Christian  people. 


INDEX. 


Revisers'  Notb  ... 
Introductory  Words 
Index 


Paif© 


iii. 
viii. 


CAUSES    OF   WAR. 


Want  of  Inquiry        i 

Indifference  to  Human  Misery      ...      6 
National  Irritability 6 


Self-interest 

Secret  Motives  of  Cabinets 
Ideas  of  Glory 


CONSEQUENCES    OF    WAR. 


Destruction  of  Human  Life  ...  17 

Taxation  17 

Moral  Depravity         18 

Familiarity  with  Plunder    20 


Implicit  Obedience  to  Superiors 
Resignation  of  Moral  Afjency 
Bondage  and  Degradation    .. 
I^ffects  on  the  Community  ... 


LAWFULNESS    OF    WAR. 


Influence  of  Habit     29 

The  Appeal  to  Antiquity     31 

The  Christian  Scriptures     34 

Subjects  of  Christ's  Benediction    ...  40 

Matthew  xxvi.  52                  41 

The  Apostles  and  Evangelists        ...  42 

The  Centurion 46 

Cornelius          47 

Luke  xxii.  36 49 

John  the  Baptist        52 

Far-fetched  Arguments       53 

Negative  Evidence     54 

Prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  ...  54 


The    Kequiremcnts  of  Christianity 

are  of  Present  Obligation 66 

The  Primitive  Christians     57 

Example   and   Testimony  of  Early 

Christians       .  58 

Christian  Soldiers      62 

Wars  of  the  Jews       ...  63 

Duties  of  Individuals  and  Nations  .  64 

Offensive  and  Defensive  War         ...  66 

Wars  always  Aggressive      69 

Paley      70 

War  wholly  Forbidden         71 


OF  THE  PROBABLE  PRACTICAL  EFFECTS  OF  ADHERING 
TO  THE  MORAL  LAW  IN  RESPECT  TO  WAR. 


Quakers  in  America  and  Ireland  ...  72 
Colonisation  of  Pennsylvania  ..  76 
Confidence  in  the  Providence  of  God     "0 


Recapitulation 
General  Observations 


APPENDIX. 


Christianity  the  True  Remedy  for 

War  86 

Internatio  lal  ArHt  »tion  :  a  Fik 


tical     Application     of     Christian 

Principles  86 

Some  of  the   Consequences  of  the 
Modern  War  System         87 


WAR: 


AN   INQUIRY  INTO   ITS    CAUSES, 
CONSEQUENCES,    LAWFULNESS,    Etc. 


IT  is  one  amongst  the  numerous  moral  phenomena  of 
the  present  times,  that  the  inquiry  is  silently  yet 
not  slowly  spreading  in  the  world — Is  War  compatible 
with  the  Christian  religion  ?  There  was  a  period  when 
the  question  was  seldom  asked,  and  when  War  was  regarded 
almost  by  every  man  both  as  inevitable  and  right.  That 
period  has  certainly  ))assed  away ;  and  not  only  indi- 
viduals but  public  societies,  and  societies  in  distant  nations, 
are  urging  the  (question  upon  the  attention  of  mankind. 
The  simple  circumstance  that  it  is  thus  urged  contains 
no  irrational  motive  to  investigation  :  for  why  should 
men  ask  the  question  if  they  did  not  doubt ;  and  how, 
after  these  long  ages  of  prescription,  could  they  begin  to 
doubt,  without  a  reason  ? 

It  is  not  unworthy  of  remark  that,  whilst  dis(iuisitions 
are  frequently  issuing  from  the  press,  of  which  the  ten- 
dency is  to  show  that  War  is  not  compatible  with  Chris- 
tianity, few  serious  attempts  are  made  to  show  that  it  is. 
Whether  this  results  from  the  circumstance  that  no  par- 
ticular individual  is  interested  in  the  proof, — or  that  there 
is  a  secret  consciousness  that  proof  cannot  be  brought, — 
or   that   those   who   may   be   desirous   of    defending    the 


2  WAR   HAS   HARDLY    A   DEFENDER. 

custom  rest  in  security  tli:it  the  impotence  of  its  assailants 
will  be  of  no  avail  against  a  custom  so  established  and 
so  supported, — I  do  not  know  :  but  the  fact  is  remarkable, 
that  scarcely  a  defender  is  to  be  found.  It  cannot  be 
doubted  that  the  question  is  one  of  the  utmost  interest 
and  importance  to  man.  Whether  the  custom  be  defen- 
sible or  not,  every  man  should  inquire  into  its  consistency 
with  tiie  Moral  Law.  If  it  is  defensible,  he  may,  by 
inquiry,  dismiss  the  scruples  which  it  is  certain  subsist 
in  the  minds  of  multitudes,  and  thus  exempt  himself 
from  the  ofience  of  participating  in  that  which,  though 
pure,  he  "  esteemeth  to  be  unclean."  If  it  is  not  defen- 
sible, the  propriety  of  investigation  is  increased  in  a  ten- 
fold degi-ee. 

It  may  be  a  subject  therefore  of  reasonable  regret  to 
the  frienils  and  the  lovers  of  truth,  that  the  question  of  the 
Moral  Lawfulness  of  War  is  not  brought  fairly  before  the 
public.  I  say  fairly  ;  because  though  many  of  the  publica- 
tions which  impugn  its  la\yfulne.ss  advert  to  the  ordinary 
arguments  in  its  favour,  yet  it  is  not  to  be  assumed  that 
they  give  to  those  arguments  all  that  vigour  and  force 
which  would  be  imparted  by  a  stated  and  an  able  advocate. 
Few  books,  it  is  probnble,  would  tend  more  powerfully  to 
promote  the  discovery  and  spread  of  truth,  than  one  which 
should  frankly  and  fully  and  ably  advocate,  upon  sound 
moral  principles,  the  practice  of  War.  The  public  would 
then  see  the  whole  of  what  can  be  urged  in  its  favour  with- 
out being  obliged  to  seek  for  arguments,  as  they  now  must, 
in  incidental,  or  imperfect  or  scattered,  disquisitions  :  and 
possessing  in  a  distinct  fo;ra  the  evidence  of  both  narties 


BIAS   IN    FAVOUR  OF   WAR.  3 

they  would  be  enabled  to  judge  justly  between  them. 
Perhaps  if,  invited  as  the  public  are  to  the  discussion,  no 
man  is  hereafter  willing  to  adventure  in  the  cause,  the 
conclusion  will  not  be  unreasonable,  that  no  man  is  desti- 
tute of  a  consciousness  that  the  cause  is  not  a  good  one. 

Meantime  it  is  the  business  of  him  whose  inquiries  have 
conducted  him  to  the  conclusion  that  the  cause  is  not 
good,  to  exhibit  the  evidence  upon  which  the  conclusion  is 
founded.  It  happens  that  upon  the  subject  of  War,  more 
than  upon  almost  any  other  subject  of  human  inquiry,  the 
individual  finds  it  difficult  to  contemplate  its  merits  with 
an  unbiassed  mind.  He  finds  it  difficult  to  examine  it  as 
it  would  be  examined  by  a  philosopher  to  whom  the  sub- 
ject was  new.  He  is  familiar  with  its  details ;  he  is 
habituated  to  the  idea  of  its  miseries ;  he  has  perhaps 
never  doubted,  because  he  has  never  questioned,  its  recti- 
tude ;  nay,  he  has  associated  with  it  ideas  not  of  splendour 
only  but  of  honour  and  of  merit.  That  such  an  inquirer 
will  not,  without  some  efibrt  of  abstraction,  examine  the 
question  with  impartiality  and  justice,  is  plain  ;  and  there- 
fore the  first  business  of  him  who  would  satisfy  his  mind 
respecting  the  lawfulness  of  War,  is  to  divest  liimself  of  all 
those  habits  of  thought  and  feeling  which  have  been  the 
result  not  of  reflection  and  judgment,  but  of  the  ordinary 
associations  of  life.  And  perhaps  he  may  derive  some 
assistance  in  this  necessary  but  not  easy  dismissal  of  previous 
opinions,  by  referring  first  to  some  of  the  ordinary  Causes 
and  Consequences  of  War.  The  reference  will  enable  us 
also  more  satisfactorily  to  estimate  the  moral  character  of  tne 
practice  itself;  for  it  is  no  unimportant  auxifiary  in  lormmg 


4  CAUSES  OF   WAR. 

such  an  estimate  of  human  actions  or  opinions,  to  know 
how  they  have  been  produced  and  what  are  their  etiects. 


CAUSES   OF   WAR. 

WAJNT    OF    INQUIRY. 

Of  these  Causes  one  undoubtetlly  consists  in  the  want 
of  inquiry.  We  have  been  accustomed  from  earliest  life  to 
a  familiarity  with  its  " pomp  and  circumstance;"  soldiers 
have  passed  us  at  every  step,  and  battles  and  victories 
have  been  the  topic  of  every  one  around  us.  It  therefore 
becomes  familiarized  to  all  our  thoughts  and  interwoven 
with  all  our  associations.  We  have  never  inquired  whether 
these  things  should  be  :  the  question  does  not  even  sug- 
gest itself.  We  acquiesce  in  it,  as  we  acquiesce  in  the  rising 
of  the  sun,  witliDut  any  other  idea  than  tli.it  it  is  a  ])art  of 
the  ordinary  processes  of  the  world.  And  how  are  we  to 
feel  disapprobation  of  a  system  that  we  do  not  e.xamine. 
and  of  the  nature  of  which  we  do  not  think  ?  Want  of 
inquiry  has  been  the  means  by  which  long-continued 
practices,  whatever  has  been  their  enormity,  have  obtained 
the  general  concurrence  of  the  world,  and  by  which  they 
have  continued  to  pollute  or  degrade  it,  long  after  the  few 
who  inquire  into  titeir  nature  have  discovered  them  to  be 
bad.  It  wa.s  by  these  means  that  the  Slave  Trade  was  so 
long  tolerated  by  this  land  of  humanity.  Men  did  not 
think  of  its  iniquity.  We  were  induced  to  think,  and  we 
soon  abhorred,  and  then  abolished  it.  Of  the  effects  of 
this  want  of  inquiry  we  have  indeed  frequent  examples  in 
connection  with  the  subject  before  us.  Many  who  have  all 
their  lives  concluded  that  War  is  lawful  and  right,  have 


WANT  OF   INQUIRY.  6 

found,  when  they  began  to  examine  the  question,  that 
their  conchisions  were  founded  upon  no  evidence ;  that 
they  had  believed  in  its  rectitude,  not  because  they  had 
possessed  themselves  of  proof,  but  because  they  had  never 
inquired  whether  it  was  capable  of  proof  or  not.  In  the 
present  moral  state  of  the  world,  one  of  the  first  concerns 
of  him  who  would  discover  pure  morality  should  be  to 
question  the  purity  of  that  which  now  obtains. 

INDIFFERENCE   TO   HUMAN    MISERY. 

Another  cause  of  our  complacency  with  War,  and  there- 
fore another  cause  of  War  itself,  consists  in  that  callousness 
to  human  misery  which  the  custom  induces.  They  who 
are  shocked  at  a  single  murder  on  the  highway,  hear  with 
indifference  of  the  slaughter  of  a  thousand  on  the  field. 
They  whom  the  idea  of  a  single  corpse  would  thrill  with 
terror,  contemplate  that  of  heaps  of  human  carcasses 
mangled  by  human  hands,  with  frigid  indifference.  If 
a  murder  is  committed,  the  narrative  is  given  in  the  public 
newspaper,  with  many  adjectives  of  horror,  with  many 
expressions  of  commiseration,  and  many  hopes  that  the 
perpetrator  will  be  detected.  In  the  next  paragraph,  the 
editor,  perhaps,  tells  us  that  he  has  hurried  a  second  edition 
to  the  press,  in  order  that  he  may  be  the  first  to  gladden  the 
public  with  the  intelligence,  that  in  an  engagement  which 
has  just  taken  place,  eight  hundred  and  fifty  of  the  enemy 
were  killed.  Now,  is  not  this  latter  intelligence  eight 
hundred  and  fifty  times  as  deplorable  as  the  first?  Yet 
the  first  is  the  subject  of  our  sorrow,  and  this — of  our  joy  ' 
The  inconsistency  and  want  of  proportion  which  have  been 


6  .  CAUSES  OF    WAR. 

occasioned  in  our  sentiments  of  benevolence,  offer  a  curious 
moral  plienomenon. 

The  immolations  of  the  Hindoos  fill  us  with  compassion 
or  horror  ;  the  sacrifices  of  life  by  our  own  criminal  execu- 
tions are  the  subject  of  our  anxious  commiseration.  We 
feel  that  the  life  of  a  Hindoo,  or  of  a  malefactor,  is  a  serious 
thing,  and  that  nothing  but  imperious  necessity  should 
induce  us  to  destroy  the  one,  or  to  permit  the  destruction 
of  the  other.  Yet  what  are  these  sacrifices  of  life  in  com- 
parison with  the  sacrifices  of  War?  In  Napoleon's  cam- 
paign in  Russia,  there  fell,  during  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
three  days  in  succession,  an  average  of  two  thousand  nine 
hundred  men  per  day ;  more  than  five  hundred  thousand 
human  beings  in  less  than  six  months  !  And  most  of  these 
victims  expired  with  peculiar  intensity  of  suffering.  We 
are  carrying  our  benevolence  to  the  Indies,  but  what 
becomes  of  it  in  Russia,  or  at  Leipsic  ?  We  labour  to  save 
a  few  lives  from  the  gallows,  but  where  is  our  solicitude  to 
save  them  on  the  field  ?  Life  is  life  wheresoever  it  be 
sacrificed,  and  has  everywhere  equal  claims  to  our  regard. 
I  am  not  now  saying  that  War  is  wrong,  but  that  we  regard 
its  miseries  with  an  indifference  with  which  we  regard  no 
others ;  that  if  our  sympathy  were  reasonably  excited 
respecting  them,  we  should  be  powerfully  prompted  to 
avoid  War ;  and  that  the  want  of  this  reasonable  and 
virtuous  sympatjjy  is  one  cause  of  its  prevalence  in  the 
world. 

NATIONAL    IRRITABILITY. 

And  another  consists  in  national  irritability.  It  is  often 
assumed  (not  indeed  upon  the  most  rational  grounds)  that 


NATIONAL   IRRITABILITY.  7 

the  best  way  of  supporting  the  dignity  and  maintaining 
the  security  of  a  nation  is,  when  occasions  of  disagreement 
arise,  to  assume  a  high  attitude  and  a  combative  tone. 
We  keep  ourselves  in  a  state  of  irritability  which  is  con- 
tinually alive  to  occasions  of  offence ;  and  he  that  is  pre- 
pared to  be  offended  readily  finds  offences.  A  jealous 
sensibility  sees  insults  and  injuries  where  sober  eyes  see 
nothing ;  and  nations  thus  surround  themselves  with  a  sort 
of  artificial  tentacula,  which  they  throw  wide  in  quest  of 
irritation,  and  by  which  they  are  stimulated  to  revenge,  by 
every  touch  of  accident  or  ina^lverteucy.  They  who  are 
easily  offended  will  also  easily  offend.  What  is  the  experi- 
ence of  private  life  ?  The  man  who  is  always  on  the  alert 
to  discover  trespasses  on  his  honour  or  his  rights,  never  fails 
to  quarrel  with  his  neighbours.  Such  a  person  may  be 
dreaded  as  a  torpedo.  We  may  fear,  but  we  shall  not  love 
him ;  and  fear,  without  love,  easily  lapses  into  enmity. 
There  are,  therefore,  many  feuds  and  litigations  in  the  life 
of  such  a  man,  that  would  never  have  disturbed  its  quiet 
if  he  had  not  captiously  snarled  at  tiie  trespasses  of  accident, 
and  savagely  retaliated  insignificant  injuries.  The  viper 
that  we  chance  to  molest,  we  suffer  to  live  if  he  contmues 
to  be  quiet ;  but  if  he  raise  himself  in  menaces  of  destruc- 
tion we  knock  him  on  the  head. 

It  is  with  nations  as  with  men.  If  on  every  offence  we 
fly  to  arms,  we  shall  of  necessity  provoke  exasperation ; 
and  if  we  exasperate  a  people  as  petulant  as  ourselves,  we 
may  probably  continue  to  butcher  one  another,  until  we 
cease  only  from  emptiness  of  exchequers  or  weariness  of 
slaughter.     To  threaten  war  is,  therefore,  often  equivalent 


«  CAUSES  OF   WAK. 

to  beginning  it.  In  the  present  state  of  men's  principles, 
it  is  not  probable  that  one  nation  will  observe  another 
levying  men,  and  building  ships,  and  founding  cannon, 
without  providing  men,  and  ships,  and  cannon  themselves  ; 
and  when  both  are  thus  threatening  and  defying,  what  is 
the  hope  that  there  will  not  be  a  war  ? 

If  nations  fought  only  when  they  could  not  be  at  peace, 
there  would  be  very  little  fighting  in  the  world.  The  wars 
that  are  waged  for  "  insults  to  flags,"  and  an  endless  train 
of  similar  motives,  are  perhaps  generally  attributable  to 
the  irritability  of  our  pride.  We  are  at  no  pains  to  appear 
pacific  towards  the  offender  ;  our  remonstrance  is  a  threat ; 
and  the  nation,  which  would  give  satisfaction  to  an  inquiry, 
will  give  no  other  answer  to  a  menace  than  a  menace  in 
return.  At  length  we  begin  to  fight,  not  because  we  are 
aggrieved,  but  because  we  are  angry.  One  example  may  be 
offered  :  "  In  1789,  a  small  Spanish  vessel  committed  some 
violence  in  Nootka  Sound,  under  the  pretence  that  the 
country  belonged  to  Spain.  This  appears  to  have  been  the 
principal  ground  of  offence :  and  with  this  both  the 
Government  and  the  people  of  England  were  very  angry. 
The  irritability  and  haughtiness  which  they  manifested 
were  unaccountable  to  the  Spaniards,  and  the  peremptory 
tone  was  imputed  by  Spain,  not  to  the  feelings  of  offended 
dignity  and  violated  justice,  but  to  some  lurking  enmity, 
and  some  secret  designs  which  we  did  not  choose  to  avow."* 
If  the  tone  had  been  less  peremptory  and  more  rational,  no 
such  suspicion  would  have  been  excited,  and  the  hostility 
whioh  was  consequent  upon  the  suspicion  would,  of  course, 
■   Sniollett'f  England 


NATIONAL  IRRITABILITY.  9 

have  been  avoided.  Happily  the  English  were  not  so 
passionate  but  that  before  they  proceeded  to  fight  they 
negotiated,  and  settled  the  affair  amicably.  The  prepara- 
tions for  this  foolish  threatened  war  cost,  however,  tliree 
millions  one  hundred  and  thirty-three  thousand  pounds  ! 

So  well  indeed  is  national  irritability  known  to  be  an 
efficient  cause  of  War,  that  they  who  from  any  motive  wish 
to  promote  it,  endeavour  to  rouse  the  temper  of  a  people 
by  stimulating  their  passions,  just  as  the  boys  in  our  streets 
stimulate  two  dogs  to  fight.  These  persons  talk  of  the 
insults,  or  the  encroachments,  or  the  contempts,  of  the 
destined  enemy,  with  every  artifice  of  aggi-avation  ;  they 
tell  us  of  foreigners  who  want  to  trample  upon  our  rights, 
of  rivals  who  ridicule  our  power,  of  foes  who  will  crush, 
and  of  tyrants  who  will  enslave  us.  They  pursue  their 
object,  certainly,  by  efficacious  means ;  they  desire  a  war, 
and  therefore  irritate  our  passions ;  and  when  men  are 
angry  they  are  easily  persuaded  to  fight. 

That  this  cause  of  War  is  morally  bad,  that  petulance 
and  irritability  are  wholly  incompatible  with  Christianity, 
will  be  universally  admitted. 

SELF-INTEREST. 

Wars  are  often  promoted  from  considerations  of  interest, 
as  well  as  from  passion.  The  love  of  gain  adds  its  influ- 
ence to  our  other  motives  to  support  them  ;  and  without 
other  motives  we  know  that  this  love  is  sufficient  to  give 
great  obliquity  to  the  moral  judgment,  and  to  tempt  us 
to  many  crimes.  During  a  war  of  ten  years  there  will 
always   be   many  whose   income   depends  on  its  continu- 


10  CAUSES   OF    WAR. 

Auce  ;  and  a  countless  host  of  commissaries,  and  purveyors, 
and  agents,  and  mechanics,  commend  a  war  because  it  fills 
their  pockets.  Arid  unhappily,  if  money  is  in  prospect,  the 
desolation  of  a  kingdom  is  often  of  little  concern  :  destruc- 
tion and  slaughter  are  not  to  be  put  in  competition  with 
definite  personal  gain.  In  truth,  it  seems  sometimes  to  be 
the  system  of  the  conductors  of  a  war  to  give  to  the  sources 
of  gain  endless  ramifications.  The  more  there  are  who 
profit  by  it,  the  more  numerous  are  its  supporters  ;  and 
thus  the  projects  of  a  cabinet  become  identified  with  the 
wislies  of  the  people,  and  both  are  gratified  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  War. 

A  support  more  systematic  and  powerful  is  however  given 
to  War,  because  it  offers  to  the  higher  ranks  of  society  a 
profession  which  unites  gentility  with  profit,  and  which, 
without  the  vulgarity  of  trade,  maintains  or  enriches  them. 
It  i.s  of  little  consequence  to  inquire  whether  the  distinc- 
tion, as  regards  vulgarity,  between  the  toils  of  War  and  the 
toils  of  commerce  be  fictitious.  In  the  abstract,  it  is  fic- 
titious ;  but  of  this  species  of  reputation  public  opinion 
holds  the  arhitrium  et  jus  et  norma ;  and  public  opinion  is 
in  favour  of  AVur. 

The  army  and  the  navy,  therefore,  afford  to  the  middle 
and  higher  classes  a  most  acceptable  profession.  The  pro- 
fession of  arms  is,  like  the  profession  of  law  or  of  physic, 
a  regular  source  of  employment  and  ])rofit.  Boys  are 
eiliicated  fof  the  army  as  they  are  educated  for  tiie  bar; 
and  many  parents  appear  to  have  no  other  idea  than  that 
War  i.s  part  of  the  business  of  the  world.  0^  younger  sons, 
whose   fathers,    in  pursuance  of  the   unhappy   system  of 


SELF-INTEREST.  11 

primogeniture,  do  not  choose  to  support  them  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  heir,  the  army  and  the  navy  are  the  common 
resource.  They  would  not  know  what  to  do  without  them. 
To  many  of  these  the  news  of  a  peace  is  a  calamity ;  and 
though  they  may  not  lift  their  voices  in  favour  of  new  hos- 
tilities for  the  sake  of  gain,  it  is  unhappily  certain  that  they 
often  secretly  desire  it. 

It  is  in  this  manner  that  much  of  the  rank,  of  the  influ- 
ence, and  of  the  wealth,  of  a  country  become  interested  in 
a  promotion  of  wars  ;  and  when  a  custom  is  promoted  by 
wealtli,  and  influence,  and  rank,  what  is  the  wonder  that  it 
should  be  continued?  It  is  said  (if  my  memory  serves  me, 
by  Sir  Walter  Raleigh),  "  He  that  taketh  up  his  rest  to  live 
by  this  profession  shall  hardly  be  an  honest  man." 

By  depending  upon  War  for  a  subsistence,  a  powerful 
inducement  is  given  to  desire  it ;  and  when  the  question  of 
War  is  to  be  decided,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  whispers  of 
interest  will  prevail,  and  that  humanity,  and  religion,  and 
■conscience,  will  be  sacrificed  to  promote  it. 

SECRET   MOTIVES   OF   CABINETS. 

Of  those  causes  of  War  which  consist  in  the  ambition  of 
'priiices,  or  statesmen,  or  commanders,  it  is  not  necessary  to 
speak,  because  no  one  to  whom  the  world  will  listen  is 
willing  to  defend  them. 

Statesmen  however  have,  besides  ambition,  many  pur- 
poses of  subtle  policy  which  make  wars  convenient ;  and 
when  they  have  such  purposes,  they  are  sometimes  cool 
speculators  in  the  lives  of  men.  They  who  have  much 
patronage  have  many  dependents,  and  they  who  have  many 


12  CAUSES   OF    WAit. 

dependents  have  much  power.  By  a  war,  thousands  become 
dependent  on  a  minister ;  and,  if  he  be  disposed,  he  can 
often  pursue  schemes  of  guilt,  and  intrench  himself  in 
unpunished  wickedness,  because  the  war  enables  him  to 
silence  by  an  office  the  clamour  of  opposition,  and  to  secure 
by  a  bribe  the  suffrages  of  venality.  He  has,  therefore, 
many  motives  to  War  :  in  ambition,  that  does  not  refer  to 
conquest ;  or  in  fear,  that  extends  only  to  his  office  or  his 
pocket :  and  fear  and  ambition  are  sometimes  more  interest- 
ing considerations  than  the  happiness  and  the  lives  of  men. 
Cabinets  have,  in  truth,  many  secret  motives  to  wars  of 
which  the  people  know  little.  They  talk  in  public  of  in- 
vasions of  right,  or  of  breaches  of  treaty,  of  the  support  of 
honour,  of  the  necessity  of  retaliation,  when  these  motives 
have  no  influence  on  their  determinations.  Some  untold 
purpose  of  ex])ediency,  or  the  private  (piarrel  of  a  prince, 
or  the  pique  or  anger  of  a  minister,  are  often  the  real 
motives  to  a  contest,  whilst  its  promoters  are  loudly  talk- 
ing of  the  honour  or  of  the  safety  of  the  (.-oimtry. 

IDEAS   OF   GLORY. 

But  perhaps  the  most  operative  cause  of  the  popularity 
of  War,  and  of  the  facility  with  which  we  engage  in  it, 
consists  in  this,  that  an  idea  of  glory  is  attached  to  military 
exploits,  and  of  honour  to  the  military  profession.  The 
glories  of  battle,  and  of  those  who  perish  in  it,  or  who 
return  in  triumph  to  their  country,  are  favourite  topics  of 
declamation  with  the  historian,  the  biographer,  and  the 
poet.  They  have  told  us  a  thousarnl  times  of  dying  ktroes, 
who  "resign  their  lives  amidst  the  joys  of  c()n(^uest,  and^ 


IDEAS  OF  GLORY.  13 

filled  with  their  country's  glory,  smile  in  death ; "  and  thus 
every  excitement  that  eloquence  and  genius  can  command, 
is  employed  to  arouse  that  ambition  of  fame  which  can  be 
gratified  only  at  the  expense  of  blood. 

Into  the  nature  and  principles  of  this  fame  and  glory  we 
cannot  now  minutely  inquire  ;  but  in  the  view  alike  of  virtue 
and  of  intellect,  they  are  low  and  bad.  "  I  cannot  tell " 
said  Jane  Taylor,  "  how  or  why  the  love  of  glory  is  a  less 
selfish  principle  than  the  love  of  riches."  "Christianity" 
says  Bishop  Watson,  "  quite  annihilates  the  disposition  for 
martial  glory."  Another  testimony,  and  from  an  advocate 
of  War  (Paley's  Ev'id.,  p.  ii.  c.  2),  goes  further,  and  says 
"  that  no  two  things  can  be  more  different  than  the  heroic 
and  the  Christian  character." 

Such  is  the  foundation  of  the  glory  which  has  for  so 
many  ages  deceived  and  deluded  multitudes  of  mankind  ! 
Upon  this  foundation  a  structure  has  been  raised  so  vast,  so 
brilliant,  so  attractive,  that  the  greater  portion  of  mankind 
are  content  to  ga/e  in  admiration,  without  any  inquiry  into 
its  basis,  or  any  solicitude  for  its  durability.  If,  however,  it 
should  be  that  the  gorgeous  temple  will  be  able  to  stand 
only  till  Christian  truth  and  light  become  predominant,  it 
surely  will  be  wise  of  those  who  seek  a  niche  in  its  apart- 
ments as  their  paramount  and  final  good,  to  pause  ere  they 
proceed.  If  they  desire  a  reputation  that  shall  outlive 
guilt  and  fictioii,  let  them  look  to  the  basis  of  military 
fame.  If  this  fame  should  one  day  sink  into  oblivion  and 
contempt,  it  will  not  be  the  first  instance  in  which  wide- 
spread glor}'  has  been  found  to  be  a  glittering  bubble,  that 
has  burst,  and  been  forgotten.    Look  at  the  days  of  chivalry. 


14  CAUSES  OF   WAR. 

Of  the  ten  thousand  Quixotes  of  the  middle  a<?es,  where  is 
now  the  honour  or  the  name  ?  Yet  poets  once  sang  their 
prai.^es,  and  the  chronicler  of  their  achievements  believed 
he  was  recording  an  everlasting  fame.  Where  are  now  the 
jflories  of  tiie  tournament  ? — glories 

"  Of  which  all  Europe  rang  from  side  to  side." 
Where  is  the  champion  whom  princesses  caressed  and  nobles 
envied  ?  Where  are  now  the  triumphs  of  Duns  Scotus,  and 
where  are  the  folios  that  perpetuated  his  fame  ?  The  glories 
of  War  have  indeed  outlived  these  :  human  passions  are 
less  mutable  than  human  follies  ;  but  I  am  willing  to  avow 
my  conviction,  that  these  glories  are  alike  destined  to  sink 
into  forgetfulness  ;  and  that  the  time  is  approaching  wlien 
the  applauses  of  military  heroism,  and  the  splendours  of 
conquest,  will  be  remembered  only  as  follies  and  iniquities 
that  are  past.  Let  him  who  seeks  for  fame,  other  than 
that  which  an  era  of  Christian  consistency  will  allow,  make 
haste  ;  for  every  hour  that  he  delays  its  acquisition  will 
shorten  its  duration.  This  is  certain,  if  there  be  certainty 
in  the  promises  of  Heaven. 

Of  this  factitious  glory  as  a  cause  of  War,  Gibbon  speaks 
in  his  Decline  and  Fall.  "  As  long  as  mankind  "  says  he, 
"  shall  continue  to  bestow  more  liberal  applause  on  their 
destroyers  than  on  their  benefactors,  the  thirst  of  military 
glory  will  ever  be  the  vice  of  the  most  exalted  characters." 
"  'Tis  strange  to  imagine "  says  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury, 
"  that  War,  which  of  all  things  appears  the  most  savage, 
should  be  the  passion  of  the  most  heroic  spirits."  But 
he  gives  us  the  reason  : — "  By  a  small  miKyuidatice  of 
the  affection    a  lover  of  mankind  becomes  a  ravager  ;   a 


SUMMING   UP.  15 

hero  and  deliverer  becomes  an  oppressor  and  destroyer." 
These  are  amongst  the  great  perpetual  causes  of  War. 
And  what  are  they  ?  First,  That  we  do  not  inquire  whether 
War  is  right  or  wrong.  Secondly,  That  we  are  habitually 
loaughty  and  irritable  in  our  intercourse  with  other  nations. 
Thirdly,  That  War  is  a  source  of  profit  to  individuals,  and 
establishes  professions  which  are  very  convenient  to  the 
middle  and  higher  ranks  of  life.  Fourthly,  That  it  gratifies 
the  ambition  of  public  men,  and  serves  the  purposes  of  state 
policy.  Fifthly,  That  notions  of  glory  are  attached  to  war- 
like atfairs  ;  which  glory  is  factitious  and  impure. 

In  the  view  of  reason,  and  especially  in  the  view  of 
religion,  what  is  the  character  of  these  Causes  ?  Are  they 
pure  ?  Are  they  honourable  ?  Are  they,  when  connected 
with  their  effects,  compatible  with  the  Moral  Law  ? — Lastly, 
and  especially,  Is  it  probable  that  a  system  of  which  these  are 
the  great  ever-duriug  Causes,  can  itself  be  good  or  right  i 


CONSEQUENCES   OF  WAR. 

To  expatiate  upon  the  miseries  which  War  brings  uj>on 
mankind,  appears  a  trite  and  a  needless  employment.  W^e 
all  know  that  its  evils  are  great  and  dreadful.  Yet  the 
very  circumstance  that  the  knowledge  is  familiar  may  make 
it  inoperative  upon  our  sentiments  and  our  conduct.  It  is 
not  the  intensity  of  misery,  it  is  not  the  extent  of  evil 
alone,  which  is  necessary  to  animate  us  to  that  exertion 
which  evil  and  misery  should  excite  ;  if  it  were,  surely  we 
should  be  much  more  averse  than  we  now  are  to  contribute, 
in  word  or  in  action,  to  the  promotion  of  War. 


16  CONSEQUENCES  OF   WAR. 

But  there  are  mischiefs  attendant  upon  the  system  which 
are  not  to  every  man  thus  familiar,  and  on  which,  for  that 
reason,  it  is  expedient  to  remark.  In  referring  especially 
to  some  of  those  Moral  conse(iuences  of  War  which  com- 
monly obtain  little  of  our  attention,  it  may  be  observed, 
that  social  and  political  considerations  are  necessarily  in- 
volved in  the  moral  tendency  :  for  the  happiness  of  society 
is  always  diminished  by  the  diminution  of  morality ;  and 
enlightened  policy  knows  that  the  greatest  support  of  a 
state  is  the  virtue  of  the  people. 

And  yet  the  reader  should  bear  in  mind — what  nothing 
but  the  frequency  of  the  calamity  can  make  him  forget — 
the  intense  sufferings  and  irreparable  deprivations  which 
one  battle  inevitably  entails  upon  private  life.  These 
are  calamities  of  which  the  world  thinks  little,  and 
which,  if  it  thought  of  them,  it  could  not  remove.  A 
father  or  a  husband  can  seldom  be  replaced  ;  a  void  is 
created  in  the  domestic  felicity  which  there  is  little  hope 
that  the  future  will  fill.  By  the  slaughter  of  a  war,  there 
are  thousands  who  weep  in  unpitied  and  unnoticed  secrecy, 
whom  the  world  does  not  see  ;  and  thousands  who  retire  in 
silence  to  hopeless  poverty,  for  whom  it  does  not  care.  To 
these  the  conquest  of  a  kingdom  is  of  little  importance 
The  loss  of  a  protector  or  of  a  friend  is  ill  repaid  by  empty 
glory.  An  addition  of  territory  may  add  titles  to  a  king, 
but  the  brilliancy  of  a  crown  throws  little  light  upon 
domestic  gloom.  It  is  not  my  intention  to  insist  upon 
these  calamities,  intense  and  irreparable  and  unnumbered 
as  they  are  ;  but  those  who  begin  a  war  without  taking 
them   into  their  estimates  of   its  consequences,   must  be 


DESTRUCTION   OF   HUMAN   LIFE.  17 

reganleil  as,  at  most,  haif-seeing  politicians.  The  legiti- 
mate object  of  political  measures  is  the  good  of  the  people  ; 
— and  a  great  :um  of  good  a  war  must  produce,  if  it  out- 
balances even  this  portion  of  its  mischiefs. 

DESTRUCTION    OF    HUMAN    LIFE. 

Nor  should  we  be  forgetful  of  that  dreadful  part  of  all 
warfare,  the  destruction  of  mankind.  The  frequency  with 
which  this  destruction  is  represented  to  our  minds,  has 
almost  extinguished  our  perception  of  its  awfulness  and 
horror.  Between  the  years  114.1  and  1815,  an  interval  of 
six  hundred  and  seventy  years,  our  country  was  at  war 
with  France  alone  tiro  huiidred  and  sixty-six  years.  If  to 
this  we  add  our  wars  with  other  countries,  probably  we 
shall  find  that  one-half  of  the  last  six  or  seven  centuries 
has  been  spent  by  this  country  in  war  !  A  dreadful  pictures 
of  human  violence  !  How  many  of  our  fellow-men,  of  our 
fellow-Christians,  have  the.-^e  centuries  of  slaughter  cut  off ! 
What  is  the  sum  total  of  the  misery  of  their  deaths  !  * 

TAXATION. 

When  political  writers  expatiate  upon  the  extent  and 
the  evils  of  taxation,  they  do  not  sufficiently  bear  in  mind 
the  reflection  that  almost  all  our  taxation  is  the  effect  of 
War.  A  man  declaims  upon  national  debts.  He  ought  to 
declaim  upon  the  parent  of  those  debts.  Do  we  reflect 
that  if  heavy  taxation  entails  evils  and  misery  upon  the 
community,  that  misery  and  those  evils  are  inilicted  upon 
us  by  War  ?      The  amount  of  supplies  in  Queen  Anne's 

*"  Since  the  peace  of  Amiens  more  tlian /owr  millioiu  of  bnnian 
beings  have  been  sacrificed  to  the  personal  ainbitinn  of  Napoleon 
Buonapai  tc." — Quarterly  Review,  No.  xxv.  Art.   1,  1^25. 


18  CONSEQUENCES  UF    WAR. 

reign  was  about  seventy  millious  ;  and  of  this  about  sixty- 
six  millions  was  expended  in  War.  Where  is  our  equiva- 
lent good  ? 

Such  considerations  ought,  undoubtedly,  to  influence  the 
conduct  of  public  men  in  their  disagreement  with  other 
states,  even  if  higher  considerations  do  not  influence  it. 
They  ought  to  form  part  of  the  calculations  of  the  evil  of 
hostility.  I  believe  that  a  greater  mass  of  human  suff'ering 
and  loss  of  human  enjoyment  are  occasioned  by  the 
pecuniary  distresses  of  a  war,  than  any  ordinary  advantages 
of  a  war  compensate.  But  this  consideration  seems  too 
remote  to  obtain  our  notice.  Anger  at  offence,  or  hope 
of  triumph,  overpowers  the  sober  calculations  of  reason, 
and  outbalances  tTie  weight  of  after  and  long-continued 
calamities.  The  only  question  appears  to  be,  whether  taxes 
enough  for  a  war  can  be  raised,  and  whether  a  people  will 
be  willing  to  pay  them.  But  the  great  question  ought  to 
be  (setting  questions  of  Christianity  aside),  whether  the 
nation  will  gain  as  much  by  tlie  war  as  they  will  lose  by 
taxation  and  its  other  calamities. 

If  the  happiness  of  the  people  were,  what  it  ought  to  be, 
the  primary  and  the  ultimate  object  of  national  measures, 
I  think  that  the  policy  which  pursued  this  object,  would 
often  find  that  even  the  pecuniary  distresses  resulting  from 
a  war  make  a  greater  deduction  from  the  quantum  of 
felicity,  than  would  those  evils  which  the  war  may  have 
been  designed  to  aroid. 

MORAL    DKPUAVITY. 

"  But  War "  says  Erasmus,  "  does  more  harm  to  the 
morals  of  men  than  even  to  their  property  and  persons.'* 


MORAL   DEJ^RAVITY.  l» 

If,  indeed,  it  depraves  our  morals  more  than  it  injures  our 
persons  and  deducts  from  onr  property,  how  enormous  must 
its  mischiefs  be  ! 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  greater  sum  of  moral  evil 
resulting  from  "War  is  suffered  by  those  who  are  immediately 
engaged  in  it,  or  by  the  public.  The  mischief  is  most 
extensive  upon  the  community,  but  upon  the  profession  it 
is  most  intense. 

Rara  fides  pietasque  viris  qui  castra  seqmintur. — Lucan. 
No  one  pretends  to  applaud  the  morals  of  an  army,  and 
as  for  its  religion,  few  think  of  it  at  all.  The  fact  is  too 
notorious  to  be  insisted  upon,  that  thousands  who  had  filled 
their  stations  in  life  with  propriety,  and  been  virtuous  from 
principle,  have  lost,  by  a  military  life,  both  the  practice 
and  the  regard  of  morality  ;  and  when  they  have  become 
habituated  to  the  vices  of  War,  have  laughed  at  their 
honest  and  plodding  brethren,  who  are  still  spiritless 
enough  for  virtue  or  stupid  enough  for  piety. 

Does  any  man  ask,  What  occasions  depravity  in  military 
life  ?  I  answer  in  the  words  of  Robert  Hall,  "War  reverses, 
with  respect  to  its  objects,  all  the  rules  of  morality.  It  is 
nothing  less  than  a  temporary  repeal  of  all  the  principles 
of  virtue.  It  is  a  system  out  of  which  almost  all  the 
virtues  are  excluded,  and  in  which  nearly  all  the  vices  are 
incorporated."  And  it  requires  no  sagacity  to  discover 
that  those  who  are  engaged  in  a  practice  which  reverses  all 
the  rules  of  morality,  which  repeals  all  the  principles  of 
virtue,  and  in  which  nearly  all  the  vices  are  incorporated, 
cannot,  without  the  intervention  of  a  miracle,  retain  their 
minds  and  morals  undepraved. 


tt  CONSEQUENCES  OF   WAR. 

FAMILIARITY    WITH    PLUNDER. 

Look,  for  illustration,  to  the  familiarity  with  the  plunder 
of  pro})erty  and  the  slaughter  of  mankind  which  War 
induces.  He  who  plunders  the  citizen  of  another  nation 
without  remorse  or  reflection,  and  bears  away  the  spoil  with 
triumph,  will  inevitably  lose  something  of  liis  principles  of 
probity.*  He  who  is  familiar  with  slaughter,  who  has 
himself  often  perpetrated  it,  and  who  exults  in  the  per- 
oetration,  will  not  retain  undepraved  the  principles  of 
virtue.  His  moral  feelings  are  blunted ;  his  moral  vision 
is  obscured  ;  his  principles  are  shaken  ;  an  inroad  is  made 
upon  their  integrity,  and  it  is  an  inroad  that  makes  after 
inroads  the  more  easy.  Mankind  do  not  generally  resist 
the  influence  of  habit.  If  to-day  we  rob  and  shoot  those 
who  are  "  enemies  "  we  are  to-morrow  in  some  degree  pre- 
pared to  shoot  and  rob  those  who  are  not  enemies.  Law  may 
indeed  still  restrain  us  from  violence ;  but  the  power  and 
efficiency  of  Principle  is  diminished  •  and  this  alienation 
of  the  mind  from  the  practice,  the  love,  and  the  perception, 
of  Christian  purity,  therefore,  of  necessity  extends  its 
influence  to  the  other  circumstances  of  life.  7 lie  trhoU 
evil  is  imputable  to  War  ;  and  we  say  that  this  evil  forms 
a  powerful  evidence  against  it,  whether  we  direct  that 
evidence  to  the  abstract  question  of  its  lawfulness,  or  to 
the  practical  question  of  its  expediency.  T/iat  can  scarcely 
be    lawful  which  necessarily  occasions  such   wide-spread 

•  "This  torrible  tnith,  which  I  cannot  lielp  repealing,  must  be 
acknowledged :  indifference  and  sellisliness  are  tlie  predominant  feel- 
ings in  an  army."  Miot's  Memoir es  de  PExpAlition  en  Egypte,  &a 
Mem.  in  the  MS 


FAMILIARITY    WITH   PLUNDER.  2* 

immorality.     That  can  scarcely  be  expedient,  which  is  so 
pernicious  to  virtue,  and  therefore  to  the  State. 

IMPLICIT   OBEDIENCE   TO   SUPEMIORS. 

The  economy  of  War  requires  of  every  soldier  an  implicit 
submission  to  his  superior ;  and  this  submission  is  required 
of  every  gradation  of  rank  to  that  above  it.  "  I  swear  to 
obey  the  orders  of  the  othcers  who  are  set  over  me  :  so 
help  me,  God."  This  system  may  be  necessary  to  hostile 
operations,  but  I  think  it  is  unquestionably  adverse  to  in- 
tellectual and  moral  excellence. 

The  very  nature  of  unconditional  obedience  implies  the 
relinquishment  of  the  use  of  the  reasoning  powers.  Little 
more  is  required  of  the  soldier  than  that  he  be  obedient 
and  brave.  His  obedience  is  that  of  an  animal  which  is 
moved  by  a  goad  or  a  bit  without  judgment  of  its  own ; 
and  his  bravery  is  that  of  a  mastiff  that  fights  whatever 
mastiff  others  ]iut  before  it.*  It  is  obvious  that  in  such 
agency  the  intellect  and  the  understanding  have  little  part. 
Now  I  think  that  this  is  important.  He  who,  with  what- 
ever motive,  resigns  the  direction  of  his  conduct  implicitly 
to  another,  surely  cannot  retain  that  erectness  and  inde- 
pendence of  mind,  that  manly  consciousness  of  mental 
freedom,  which  is  one  of  the  highest  privileges  of  our 
nature.  A  British  Captain  declares  that  "  the  tendency  of 
strict  discipline,  such  as  prevails  on  board  ships  of  war, 
where  almost  every  act  of  a  man's  life  is  regulated  by  the 
orders  of  his  superiors,  is  to  weaken  the  faculty  of  inde- 

•  By  one  article  of  the  Constitutional  Code  even  of  republican 
France,  "  the  army  were  expressly  prohibited  from  deliberating  on  any- 
subject  whatever." 


-22  CONSEQUENCES  OF    WAR. 

pendent  tlioiit^ht."  *  Thus  the  rational  being  becomes 
reduced  iu  the  intellectual  scale  :  an  encroachment  is  made 
upon  the  integrity  of  its  independence.  God  has  given  us, 
individually,  capacities  for  the  reguUition  of  our  individual 
conduct.  To  resign  its  direction,  therefore,  to  the  absolute 
disposal  of  another,  appears  to  be  an  unmanly  and  unjusti- 
fiable relinquishment  of  the  privileges  which  He  has  granted 
to  us.  And  the  effect  is  obviously  bad ;  for  although  no 
character  will  apply  universally  to  any  large  class  of  men, 
and  although  the  intellectual  character  of  the  military  pro- 
fession does  not  result  only  from  this  unhappy  subjection, 
yet  it  will  not  be  dis{)uted,  that  the  honourable  exercise  of 
intellect  amongst  that  profession  is  not  relatively  great. 
It  is  not  from  them  that  we  expect,  because  it  is  not  in 
them  that  we  generally  find,  those  vigorous  exertions  of 
intellect  which  dignify  our  nature,  and  which  extend  the 
boundaries  of  human  knowledge. 

RESIGNATION    OF    MORAL    AGENCY. 

But  the  intellectual  effects  of  military  subjection  foi-m 
but  a  small  portion  of  its  evils.  The  great  mischief  is, 
that  it  requires  the  relinquishment  of  our  moral  agency ; 
that  it  requires  us  to  do  what  is  opposed  to  our  consciences, 
and  what  we  know  to  be  wrong.  A  soldier  must  obey,  how 
criminal  soever  the  command,  and  how  criminal  soever  he 
knows  it  to  be.  It  is  certain  that,  of  those  who  compose 
armies,  many  commit  actions  which  they  believe  to  l)e 
wicked,  and  which  they  would  not  commit  but  for  the 

*  Captain  Basil  Hall's  Voyage  to  Loo  Choo,  c.  2.  We  make  no 
distinction  between  the  military  and  naval  professions,  and  employ  one 
word  to  indicate  botli. 


RESIGNATION  OF   MORAL   AGENCY,  23 

obligations  of  a  military  life.  Although  a  soldier  deter- 
miiiately  believes  that  the  war  is  unjust,  although  he  is 
convinced  that  his  particular  part  of  the  service  is  atro- 
ciously criminal,  still  he  must  proceed, — he  must  prosecute 
the  purposes  of  injustice  or  robbery,  he  must  particii)ate  in 
the  guilt,  and  be  himself  a  robber. 

To  what  a  situation  is  a  rational  and  responsible  being 
reduced,  who  commits  actions,  good  or  bad,  at  the  word  of 
another  ?  I  can  conceive  no  greater  degi-adation.  It  is  the 
lowest,  the  final  abjectness  of  the  moral  nature.  We  see 
that  it  ?>  this  if  we  take  away  the  glitter  of  War,  and  if  we 
add  this  glitter  it  remains  the  same. 

Such  a  resignation  of  our  moral  agency  is  not  contended 
for,  or  tolerated,  in  any  other  circumstance  of  human  life. 
War  stands  alone  upon  this  pinnacle  of  depravity.  She 
only,  in  the  supremacy  of  crime,  has  told  us  that  she  has 
abolished  even  the  obligation  to  be  virtuous. 

Some  writers  who  have  perceived  the  monstrousness  of 
this  system,  have  told  us  that  a  soldier  should  assure  him- 
self, before  he  engages  in  a  war,  that  it  is  a  lawful  and  just 
one ;  and  they  acknowledge  that,  if  he  does  not  feel  this 
assurance,  he  is  a  "murderer."  liut  how  is  he  to  know 
that  the  war  is  just?  It  is  frequently  difficult  for  the 
people  distinctly  to  discover  what  the  objects  of  a  war  are. 
And  if  the  soldier  knew  tiiat  it  was  just  in  its  commence- 
ment, how  is  he  to  know  that  it  will  continue  just  in  its 
prosecution  ?  Every  war  is,  in  some  parts  of  its  course, 
wicked  and  unjust ;  and  who  can  tell  w^hat  that  course  will 
be  ?  You  say,  When  he  discovers  any  injustice  or  wicked- 
ness, let  him  withdraw  :  wo  answer.  He  cannot  :   and  the 


24  ..        CONSEQUENCES   OF   WAR. 

truth  is,  that  there  is  no  way  of  avoiding  the  evil,  but  by 
avoiding  the  army. 

It  is  an  inquiry  of  much  interest,  under  what  circum- 
stances of  responsibility  a  man  supposes  himself  to  be 
placed,  who  thus  abandons  and  violates  his  own  sense  of 
rectitude  and  of  his  duties.  Either  he  is  responsible  for 
his  actions,  or  he  is  not ;  and  the  question  is  a  serious  one 
to  determine.*  Christianity  has  certainly  never  stated  any 
cases  in  which  jiersonal  responsibility  ceases.  If  she  admits 
such  cases,  she  has  at  least  not  told  us  so  ;  but  she  has  told 
us,  explicitly  and  repeatedly,  that  she  does  require  indi- 
vidual obedience  and  impose  individual  responsibility.  She 
has  made  no  exceptions  to  the  imperativeness  of  her  obliga- 
tions, whether  we  are  required  by  others  to  neglect  them  or 
not ;  and  1  can  discover  in  her  sanctions  no  reason  to  sup 
pose  that  in  her  final  adjudications  she  admits  the  plea, 
that  another  required  us  to  do  that  which  she  required  us  to 
forbear.  But  it  may  be  feared,  it  may  be  believed,  that 
how  little  soever  Religion  will  abate  of  the  responsibility  of 
those  who  obey,  she  will  impose  not  a  little  upon  those  who 
command.  They,  at  least,  are  answerable  for  the  enormities 
of  War  :  unless,  indeed,  any  one  shall  tell  me  that  respon- 
sibility attaches  nowhere  ;  that  that  which  would  be  wicked- 

*  Vattel  indeed  tells  us  that  soldiers  ought  to  "submit  their  judg- 
ment." "What"  says  he  "  would  be  the  consequence,  if  at  every  step 
of  the  Sovereign  the  subjects  were  at  liberty  to  weigh  the  justice  of 
lis  reasons,  and  refuse  to  march  to  a  war  which,  to  tiicin,  might  ajipear 
unjust?" — Law  of  Nations,  b.  3,  c.  11,  sec.  187.  Gisl)onn!  holds  very 
<lifferent  language.  "It  is"  he  says  "at  all  times  the  duty  of  an 
Englishman  steadfastly  to  decline  obeying  any  orders  of  his  superiors 
which  his  conscience  should  tell  him  were  in  any  degrt-c  impious  or 
unjust." — Dntien  of  Men. 


RESIGNATION  OF   MORAL   AGENCY.  25 

Dess  in  another  man  is  innocence  in  a  soldier ;  and  that 
Heaven  has  granted  to  the  directors  of  War  a  privilesjed 
immunity,  by  virtue  of  which  crime  incurs  no  guilt  and 
receives  no  punishment. 

BONDAGE    AND    DEGRADATION. 

Again,  no  one  doubts  that  military  power  is  essentially 
arbitrary.  And  what  are  the  customary  feelings  of  mankind 
with  respect  to  a  subjection  to  arbitrary  power  ?  How  do  we 
feel  and  think,  when  we  hear  of  a  person  who  is  obliged  to 
do  whatever  other  men  command,  and  who,  the  moment  he 
refuses,  is  punished  for  attempting  to  be  free  ?  If  a  man 
orders  his  servant  to  do  a  given  action,  he  is  at  liberty,  if 
he  think  the  action  improper,  or  if,  from  an)''  other  cause, 
he  choose  not  to  do  it,  to  refuse  his  obedience.  Far  other 
is  the  nature  of  military  subjection.  The  soldier  is  com- 
pelled to  obey,  whatever  be  his  inclination  or  his  will. 
Being  in  the  service,  he  has  but  one  alternative — submission 
to  arbitrary  power,  or  punishment — the  punishment  of 
death  perhaps, — for  refusing  to  submit.  Let  the  reader 
imagine  to  himself  any  other  cause  or  purpose  for  which 
freemen  shall  be  subjected  to  such  a  condition,  and  he  will 
then  see  that  condition  in  its  proper  light.  The  iniiuence 
of  habit  and  the  gloss  of  public  opinion  make  situations 
that  would  otherwise  be  loathsome  and  revolting,  not  only 
tolerable  but  pleasurable.  Take  away  this  influence  and 
this  gloss  from  the  situation  of  a  soldier,  and  what  should 
we  call  it  ?  We  should  call  it  a  state  of  degradation  and 
of  bondage.  But  habit  and  public  opinion,  although  they 
may  influence  notions,  cannot  alter  things.     It  is  a  state 


26  CONSEQUENCES  OF   WAR. 

intellectually,    morally,    and    politically,    of    bondaa^e   and 
degradation. 

But  the  reader  will  say  that  this  submission  to  arbitrary 
power  is  necessary  to  the  prosecution  of  War.  I  know  i*-  • 
and  that  is  the  very  point  for  observation.  It  is  because  it 
is  necessary  to  War  that  it  is  noticed  here  :  for  a  brief  but 
clear  argument  results  : — That  custom  to  which  such  a 
state  of  mankind  is  necessary  must  inevitably  be  bad ;  it 
must  inevitably  be  adverse  to  rectitude  and  to  Christianity. 

EFFECTS   ON   THE   COMMUNITY. 

Yet  I  do  not  know  whether  the  greatest  moral  evil  oi 
War  is  to  be  sought  in  its  effects  on  the  military  character. 
Upon  the  community  its  effects  are  indeed  less  apparent, 
because  they  who  are  the  secondary  subjects  of  the  im- 
moral influence,  are  less  intensely  affected  by  it  than  the 
immediate  agents  of  its  diffusion.  But  whatever  is  de- 
ficient in  the  degree  of  evil,  is  probably  more  than  com- 
pensated by  its  extent.  The  influence  is  like  that  of  a 
continual  and  noxious  vapour :  we  neither  regard  nor 
perceive  it,  but  it  secretly  undermines  the  moral  health. 

Every  one  knows  that  vice  is  contagious.  The  depravity 
of  one  man  has  always  a  tendency  to  deprave  his  neigh- 
bours ;  and  it  therefore  requires  no  unusual  acuteness  to 
discover,  that  the  prodigious  mass  of  immorality  and 
crime  which  is  accumulated  by  a  war,  must  have  a  powerful 
effect  in  "demoralizing"  the  public.  But  there  is  one 
circumstance  connected  with  the  injurious  influence  of 
War,  which  makes  it  peculiarly  operative  and  malignant. 
It  is,  that  we  do  not  hate  or  fear  the  influence,  and  do  not 


EFFECTS  ON   THE   COMMUNITY.        .  27 

fortify  ourselves  against  it.  Otlier  vicious  influences  in- 
sinuate themselves  into  our  minds  by  stealth  ;  but  this  we 
receive  with  open  embrace.  Glory,  and  patriotism,  and 
bravery,  and  conquest,  are  bright  and  glittering  things. 
Who,  when  he  is  looking  delighted  upon  these  things,  is 
armed  against  the  mischiefs  which  they  may  veil  ? 

The  evil  is  in  its  own  nature  of  almost  universal  opera- 
tion. During  a  war,  a  whole  people  become  familiarized 
with  the  utmost  excesses  of  enormity, — with  the  utmost 
intensity  of  human  wickedness, — and  they  rejoice  and 
exult  in  them  ;  so  that  there  is  probably  not  one  man  in  a 
hundred  who  does  not  lose  something  of  his  Christian 
principles  during  a  period  of  war. 

"It  is  in  my  mind"  said  C.  J.  Fox,  "no  small  misfortune 
to  live  at  a  period  when  scenes  of  horror  and  blood  are 
frequent.  *  *  *  One  of  the  most  evil  consequences  of  War 
is,  that  it  tends  to  render  the  hearts  of  mankind  callous  to 
the  feelings  and  sentiments  of  humanity." 

Those  who  know  what  the  moral  law  of  God  is,  and  who 
feel  an  interest  in  the  virtue  and  the  happiness  of  the 
world,  will  not  regard  the  bitterness  and  the  restless- 
ness of  resentment  which  are  produced  by  a  war,  as 
trifling  evils.  If  anything  be  opposite  to  Christianity,  it  is 
retaliation  and  revenge.  In  the  obligation  to  restrain 
these  dispositions,  much  of  the  characteristic  placability  of 
Christianity  consists.  The  very  essence  and  spirit  of  our 
religion  are  abhorrent  from  resentment.  The  very  essence 
and  spirit  of  War  are  promotive  of  resentment ;  and  what, 
then,  must  be  their  mutual  adverseness?  That  War  excites 
these  passions  needs  not  to  be  proved.     When  a  war  is  in 


28  .  CONSEQUENCES   OF    WAR. 

contemplation,  or  when  it  lias  been  begun,  what  are  the 
endeavours  of  its  promoters  ?  They  animate  us  by  every 
artitice  of  excitement  to  hatred  and  animosity.  Pamphlets, 
placards,  newspapers,  caricatures, — every  agent  is  in  requi- 
sition to  irritate  us  into  malignity.  Nay,  dreadful  as  it 
is,  the  pulpit  has  too  often  resounded  with  declamations 
to  stimuJate  our  too  sluggish  resentment,  and  to  invite  us 
to  slaughter.  And  thus  the  most  unchristianlike  of  all 
our  passions,  the  passion  which  it  is  most  the  object  of  our 
religion  to  repress,  is  excited  and  fostered.  Christianity 
cannot  be  flourishing  under  circumstances  like  these.  The 
more  effectually  we  are  animated  to  War,  the  more  nearly 
we  extinguish  the  dispositions  of  our  religion.  War  and 
Christianity  are  like  the  opposite  ends  of  a  balance,  of 
which  one  is  depressed  by  the  elevation  of  the  other. 

These  are  the  consequences  which  make  War  dreadful  to 
a  State.  Slaughter  and  devastation  are  sufficiently  terrible, 
but  their  collateral  evils  are  their  greatest.  It  is  the  im- 
moral feeling  that  War  diffuses, — it  is  the  depravation  of 
Pri7iciple  which  forms  the  mass  of  its  mischief. 

To  attempt  to  pursue  the  consequences  of  War  through 
all  their  ramifications  of  evil,  were,  however,  both  endless 
and  vain.  It  is  a  moral  gangrene,  which  diffuses  its 
humours  through  the  whole  political  and  social  system. 
To  expose  its  mischief,  is  to  exhibit  all  evil ;  for  there  is  no 
evil  which  it  does  not  occasion,  and  it  has  much  that  is 
peculiar  to  itself. 

That,  together  with  its  multiplied  evils,  War  produces 
some  good,  I  have  no  wish  to  deny.  I  know  that  it  some- 
times elicits  valuable  qualities  which  had  otherwise  been 


EFFECTS  ON   THE   COMMUNITY.  29 

concealed,  and  that  it  often  produces  collateral  and  adven- 
titious, and  sometimes  immediate  advantages.  If  all  this 
could  be  denied,  it  would  be  needless  to  deny  it ;  for  it  is 
of  no  consequence  to  the  question  whether  it  be  proved. 
Tha/c  any  wide-extended  system  should  not  produce  r^ome 
benefits  can  never  happen.  In  such  a  system,  it  were  an 
unheard-of  purity  of  evil,  which  was  evil  without  any  mix- 
ture of  good. — But,  to  compare  the  ascertained  advantages 
of  War  with  its  ascertained  mischiefs,  and  to  maintain  a 
question  as  to  the  preponderance  of  the  balance,  implies 
not  ignorance,  but  disingenuousness,  not  incapacity  to  de- 
cide, but  a  voluntary  concealment  of  truth. 

And  why  do  we  insist  upon  these  consequences  of  "War  ? 
— Because  the  review  prepares  the  reader  for  a  more  ac- 
curate judgment  respecting  its  lawfulness.  Because  it 
reminds  him  what  War  is,  and  because,  knowing  and  re- 
membering what  it  is,  he  will  be  the  better  able  to  compare 
it  with  the  Standard  of  Rectitude. 


LAWFULNESS    OP   WAR. 

INFLUENCE   OF   HABIT. 

I  would  recommend  to  him  who  would  estimate  the 
moral  character  of  War,  to  endeavour  to  forget  that  lie  has 
ever  presented  to  his  mind  the  idea  of  a  battle,  and  to  en- 
deavour to  contemplate  it  with  those  emotions  which  it 
would  excite  in  the  mind  of  a  being  who  had  never  before 
heard  of  human  slaughter.  The  prevailing  emotions  of 
such  a  being  would  be  astonishment  and  horror.     If  he 


so  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR. 

were  shocked  by  the  horribleness  of  the  scene,  he  would  be 
amazed  at  its  absurdity.  That  a  large  number  of  persons 
shoild  assemble  by  agreement  and  deliberately  kill  one 
another,  appears  to  the  understanding  a  proceeding  so  pre- 
posterous, so  monstrous,  that  I  think  a  being  such  as  I  have 
supposed  would  inevitably  conclude  that  they  were  mad. 
Nor  is  it  likely,  if  it  were  attempted  to  explain  to  him  some 
motives  to  such  conduct,  that  he  would  be  able  to  compre- 
hend how  any  possible  circumstances  could  make  it  reason- 
able. The  ferocity  and  prodigious  folly  of  the  act  would, 
in  his  estimation,  outbalance  the  weight  of  every  conceiv- 
able motive,  and  he  would  turn  unsatisfied  away, 
"  Astonished  at  the  madness  of  mankind." 

There  is  an  advantage  in  making  suppositions  such  as 
these ;  because  when  the  mind  has  been  familiarized  to  a 
practice  however  monstrous  or  inhuman,  it  loses  some  of 
its  sagacity  of  moral  perception ;  the  practice  is  perhaps 
veiled  in  glittering  fictions,  or  the  mind  is  become  callous 
to  its  enormities.  But  if  the  subject  is  by  some  circum- 
stance presented  to  the  mind  unconnected  with  any  of  its 
previous  associations,  we  see  it  with  a  new  judgment  and 
new  feeling  ;  and  wonder  perhaps  that  we  have  not  felt  so, 
or  thought  so,  before.  And  such  occasions  it  is  the  part  of 
a  wise  man  to  seek ;  since,  if  they  never  happen  to  us,  it 
will  often  be  difficult  for  us  accurately  to  estimate  the 
qualities  of  human  actions,  or  to  determine  whether  we 
approve  them  from  a  decision  of  our  judgment,  or  wiiether 
we  yield  them  only  the  acquiescence  of  habit. 

It  may  properly  be  a  subject  of  wonder  that  the  argu- 
ments which  are  brought  to  justify  a  ("ustom  such  as  War 


INFLUENCE  OF   HABIT.  31 

receive  so  little  investigation.  It  must  be  a  studious 
ingenuity  of  mischief  which  could  devise  a  practice  more 
calamitous  or  horrible  ;  and  yet  it  is  a  practice  of  which  it 
rarely  occurs  to  us  to  inquire  into  the  necessity,  or  to  ask 
whether  it  cannot  be,  or  ought  not  to  be,  avoided.  In  one 
truth,  however,  all  will  acquiesce, — that  the  arguments  in 
favour  of  such  a  practice  should  be  unanswerably  strong. 

THE    APPEAL   TO   ANTIQUITY. 

Let  it  not  be  said  that  the  experience  and  the  practice  of 
other  ages  have  superseded  the  necessity  of  inquiry  in  our 
own  ;  that  there  can  be  no  reason  to  question  the  lawful- 
ness of  that  which  has  been  sanctioned  by  forty  centuries  ; 
or  that  he  who  presumes  to  question  it,  is  amusing  himself 
with  schemes  of  visionary  philanthropy.  "  There  is  not,  it 
may  be "  says  Lord  Clarendon  in  his  Essays,  "  a  greater 
obstruction  to  the  investigation  of  truth  or  to  the  improve- 
ment of  knowledge,  fhan  the  too  frequent  appeal,  and  the 
too  supine  resignation  of  our  understanding,  to  antiquity." 
Whosoever  proposes  an  alteration  of  existing  institutions, 
will  meet,  from  some  men,  with  a  sort  of  instinctive  oppo- 
sition, which  appears  to  be  influenced  by  no  process  of 
reasoning,  by  no  considerations  of  propriety  or  principles  of 
rectitude,  which  defends  the  existing  system  because  it 
exists,  and  which  would  have  equally  defended  its  opposite 
if  that  had  been  the  older.  "  Nor  is  it  out  of  mode.sty " 
continues  Lord  Clarendon,  "  that  we  have  this  resignation, 
or  that  we  do  in  truth  think  those  who  have  gone  before  us 
to  be  wiser  than  ourselves  ;  we  are  as  proiul  and  as  peevish 
as  any  of  our  progenitors  ;  but  it  is  out  of  laziness  ;  we  will 


32  LAWFULNESS   OF    WAR. 

rather  take  their  words  thau  take  the  pains  to  examme  the 
reason  they  governed  themselves  by."  To  those  who  urge 
objections  from  the  authority  of  ages,  it  is  indeed  a  suthcient 
answer  to  say,  that  they  apply  to  every  long-continued  cus- 
tom. Slave-dealers  urged  them  against  the  friends  of  the 
abolition;  Papists  urged  them  against  Wickliffe  and  Luther  ; 
and  the  Athenians  probably  thought  it  a  good  objection  to 
an  apostle,  that  "  he  seemed  to  be  a  setter  forth  of  strange 
gods." 

It  is  some  satisfaction  to  be  able  to  give,  on  a  question 
of  this  nature,  the  testimony  of  some  great  minds  against 
the  lawfulness  of  War,  opposed,  as  these  testimonies  are,  to 
the  general  prejudice  and  the  general  practice  of  the  world. 
It  has  been  observed  by  Bcccaria,  that  "  it  is  the  fate  of 
great  truths  to  glow  oidy  like  a  Hash  of  lightning  amidst 
the  dark  clouds  in  which  error  has  enveloped  the  universe  ;" 
and  if  our  testimonies  are  few  or  transient,  it  matters  not, 
so  that  their  light  be  the  light  of  truth.  There  are  in- 
deed many,  who,  in  describing  the  horrible  particulars  of 
a  siege  or  a  battle,  indulge  in  some  declamation  on  the 
horrors  of  War,  such  as  has  been  often  repeated,  and  often 
applauded,  and  as  often  forgotten.  But  such  declamations 
are  of  little  value  and  of  little  effect ;  he  who  reads  the 
next  paragraph  finds,  probably,  that  he  is  invited  to  follow 
the  path  to  glory  and  to  victory ; — to  share  the  hero's  danger 
aiid partake  the  hero's  praise;  and  he  soon  discovers  that 
the  moralizing  parts  of  his  author  are  the  impulse  of 
feelings  rather  than  of  principles,  and  thinks  that  though 
it  may  be  very  well  to  write,  yet  it  is  better  to  forget 
them. 


THE   APPEAL   '['()   ANTIQUITY.  3S 

There  are,  however,  testimonies  dehvered  in  the  calm  of 
reflection  by  acute  and  enlightened  men,  which  may  reason- 
ably be  allowed  at  least  so  much  weight  as  to  free  the 
present  inquiry  from  the  charge  of  being  wild  or  visionary. 
Christianity  indeed  needs  no  such  auxiliaries  ;  but  if  they 
induce  an  examination  of  her  duties,  a  wise  man  will  not 
wish  them  to  be  disregarded. 

"They  who  defend  War,"  says  Erasmus,"  must  defend 
the  dispositions  which  lead  to  War  :  and  these  dispositions 
are  absolutely  forbidden  by  the  Gospel.  Since  the  time  tliat 
Jesus  Christ  said,  '  Put  up  thy  sword  into  its  scabbard,' 
Christians  ought  not  to  go  to  war.  Christ  suffered  Peter  to 
fall  into  an  error  in  this  matter,  on  purpose  that,  when  He 
had  put  up  Peter's  sword,  it  might  remain  no  longer  a  doubt 
that  War  was  prohibited,  which,  before  that  order,  had 
been  considered  as  allowable." — "Wickliff'e,"  says  Priestley, 
"  seems  to  have  thought  it  was  wrong  to  take  away  the  life 
of  man  on  any  account,  and  that  War  was  utterly  unlawful." 
— "I  am  persuaded,"  says  Bishop  Watson  of  Llandaff,  "that 
when  the  spirit  of  Christianity  shall  exert  its  proper  influ- 
ence War  will  cease  throughout  the  whole  Christian  world" 
"War,"  says  the  same  acute  prelate,  "has  practices  and 
principles  peculiar  to  itself,  which  but  ill  quadrate  with  the 
rule  of  moral  rectitude,  and  are  quite  abhorrent  from  th« 
benignity  of  Christianity."  The  poet  Southey  bears  this 
remarkable  testimony  :  "  There  is  but  one  community  of 
Christians  in  the  wc/ld,  and  that,  unhappily,  of  all  com- 
munities one  of  the  smallest,  enlightened  enough  to  under- 
stand the  prohibition  of  War  by  our  Divine  Master,  in 
its  plain,  literal,  and  undeniable  sense,  and  conscientious 


34  LAWFULNESS   OF   WAR. 

enough  to  obey  it,  subfhiini::  the  very  instinct  of  nature  to 
obedience." 

THE   CHRISTIAN    SCRIPTURES. 

Those  who  have  attended  to  the  mode  in  which  the  Moral 
Law  is  instituted  in  the  expressions  of  the  Will  of  God, 
wiil  not  be  surprised  to  find  that  it  contains  no  specific  pro- 
hibition of  War.  Accordingly,  if  we  be  asked  for  such  a 
prohibition, — in  the  manner,  for  instance,  in  which  "  Thou 
shalt  not  kill"  is  directed  to  murder, — we  willingly  answei 
that  no  such  prohibition  exists ; — and  it  is  not  necessary 
to  tlie  argument.  Even  those  who  would  require  such  a 
prohibition,  are  themselves  satisfied  respecting  the  obliga- 
tion of  many  negative  duties  on  which  there  has  been  no 
specific  decision  in  the  New  Testament.  They  believe 
that  suicide  is  not  lawful :  yet  Christianity  never  forbade 
it.  It  can  be  shown,  indeed,  by  implication  and  inference, 
that  suicide  cor.l.i  not  have  been  allowed,  and  with  this 
they  are  satisfied.  Yet  there  is,  probably,  in  the  Christian 
Scriptures,  not  a  twentieth  part  of  as  much  indirect  evi- 
dence against  the  lawfulness  of  suicide  as  there  is  against 
the  lawfulness  of  War.  To  those  who  require  such  a  com- 
mand as  "  Tilou  shalt  not  evgage  in  War,"  it  is  therefore 
sufficient  to  reply,  that  they  require  that,  which,  upon  this 
ami  upon  many  other  subjects,  Christianity  has  not  seen 
fit  to  give. 

We  suppose  that  no  thoughtful  man  will  deny  that  the 
characteristic  nature  of  the  Moral  Law  is  a  law  of  Benevo- 
lence. Benevolence  means  good-will  and  kind  affections 
towards  one  another,  and  is  placed  at  the  base  of  practical 


THE   CHRISTIAN   SCRIPTURES.  35 

morality, — it  is  "  the  fulfilling:  of  the  law  ;  "  it  is  the  t€st 
of  the  validity  of  our  pretensions  to  the  Christian  character. 
We  can  moreover  see  no  reason  to  doubt,  that  this  law  of 
Benevolence  is  universally  applicable  to  public  affairs  as 
well  as  to  private,  to  the  intercourse  of  nations  as  well  as 
of  men.  Let  us  refer,  then,  to  some  of  those  requisitions 
of  this  law  which  appear  peculiarly  to  respect  the  question 
of  the  moral  character  of  War. 

Have  peace  one  with  another. — By  this  shall  all  men 
know  that  ye  are  My  disciples,  if  ye  have  love  o?ie  to  another. 

IValk  with  all  lowliness  and  meekness,  with  longsuffering, 
forbearing  one  another  in  love. 

Be  ye  all  of  one  mind,  having  compassion  one  of  another ; 
love  as  brethren,  be  pitiful,  he  courteous :  not  rendering  evil 
for  evil,  or  railing  for  railing. 

Be  at  peace  among  yourselves.  See  that  none  render  evil 
for  evil  unto  any  man.  —  God  hath  called  us  to  peace. 

Follow  after  love,  patience,  meekness. — Be  gentle,  showing 
all  meekness  unto  all  men. — Live  in  peace. 

Lay  aside  all  malice. — Put  off  anger,  wrath,  malice. — 
Let  all  bitterness,  and  wrath,  and  anger,  and  clamour,  and 
evil  speaking,  be  put  away  from  you,  xvith  all  malice. 

Avenge  not  yourselves. — If  thine  enemy  hunger,  feed  him; 
if  he  thirst,  give  him  drink. — Recompense  to  no  man  evil  for 
evil. — Overcome  evil  with  good. 

Now  we  ask  of  nny  man  who  looks  over  these  passages, 
What  evidence  do  they  convey  respecting  the  lawfulness  of 
War?  Could  any  approval  or  allowance  of  it  have  been 
subjoined  to  these  instructions,  without  obvious  and  most 
g)oss  inconsistency  ? — But  if  War  is  obviously  and  most 


36  LAWFULNESS   OF    VVAB 

grossly  inconsistent  with  the  general  character  of  Chris- 
tianit)'^ ;  if  War  could  not  have  been  permitted  by  its 
teachers,  without  an  egregious  violation  of  their  own  pre- 
cepts, we  think  that  the  evidence  of  its  unlawfulness,  arising 
from  this  general  character  alone,  is  as  clear,  as  absolute, 
and  as  exclusive,  as  could  have  been  contained  in  any  form 
of  prohibition  whatever. 

But  it  is  not  from  general  principles  alone  that  the  law 
of  Christianity  respecting  War  may  be  deduced. — "  Ye  have 
heard  that  it  hath  been  said.  An  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a 
tooth  for  a  tooth  :  but  /  say  unto  you,  that  ye  resist  not 
evil :  but  whosoever  shall  smite  thee  on  thy  right  cheek, 
turn  to  him  the  other  also." — "  Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath 
been  said,  Thou  shalt  lo\e  thy  neighbour,  and  hate  thine 
enemy:  but  /say  unto  you,  Love  your  enemies,  bless  them 
that  curse  you,  do  good  to  them  that  hate  you,  and  praj 
for  them  which  desi)itefully  use  you,  and  persecute  you; 
for  if  ye  love  them  which  love  you,  what  reward  have  ye?" 

Of  the  precepts  from  the  Mount  the  most  obvious 
characteristic  is  greater  moral  excellence  and  superior  purity. 
They  are  directed,  not  so  immediately  to  the  external 
regulation  of  the  conduct,  as  to  the  restraint  and  purifica- 
tion of  the  affections.  In  another  precept  it  is  not  enough 
that  an  unlawful  passion  be  just  so  far  restrained  as  to 
produce  no  open  immorality, — the  passion  itself  is  forbidden. 
The  tendency  of  the  discourse  is  to  attach  guilt  not  to 
action  only  but  also  to  thought.  "  It  has  been  said.  Thou 
shalt  not  kill ;  and  whosoever  shall  kill  shall  be  in  danger 
of  the  judgment ;  but  /  say  unto  you,  that  whosoever  is 
angry  with  his  brother,  shall  be  in  danger  of  the  judg- 


THE   CHRISTIAN   SCRIPTURPIS.  37 

ment."  Our  Lawgiver  attaches  guilt  to  some  of  the  violent 
feelings,  such  as  resentment,  hatred,  revenge  ;  and  by  doing 
this,  we  contend  that  He  attaches  guilt  to  War.  War 
cannot  be  carried  on  without  those  passions  which  He 
prohibits.  Our  argument,  therefore,  is  syllogistical  : — War 
cannot  be  allowed,  if  that  which  is  necessary  to  War  is 
prohibited.  This,  indeed,  is  precisely  the  argument  of 
Erasmus  : — "  They  who  defend  War  must  defend  the  dis- 
positions which  lead  to  War ;  and  these  di^jxjsitions  are 
absolutely  forbidd^'ii." 

Whatever  might  have  been  allowed  under  the  Mosaic 
institution  as  to  retaliation  or  resentment,  Christianity 
says,  "  If  ye  love  them  only  which  love  you,  what  reward 
have  ye? — Love  your  enemies."  Now  what  sort  of  love 
does  that  man  bear  towards  his  enemy,  who  runs  him 
through  with  a  bayonet  ?  We  repeat,  that  the  distinguish- 
ing duties  of  Christianity  must  be  sacrificed  when  War  is 
carried  on.  The  question  is  between  the  abandonment  of 
these  duties  and  the  abandonment  of  War,  for  both  cannot 
be  retained.* 

It  is  however  objected,  that  the  prohibitions,  "Resist 
not  evil,"  etc.,  are  figurative ;  and  that  they  do  not  mean 
that  no  injury  is  to  be  punished,  and  no  outrage  to  be 
repelled.     It  has  been  asked,  -with  complacent  exultation, 

*  Yet  the  retention  of  both  lias  been,  unhappily  enough,  attempted. 
In  a  hite  publication,  of  which  a  part  is  devoted  to  the  defence  of 
War,  the  author  gravely  reconiniends  soldiers,  wliilst  shooting  and 
stabbing  their  enemies,  to  maintain  towards  them  a  feeling  of  "  good- 
will!"— Tracts  and  Essnyx  by  the  late  William  Hey,  Esq.,  F.R.S. 
And  Gisborne,  in  his  Duties  of  Men,  holds  similar  laneruasre.  He 
advises  the  soldier  "never  to  forget  the  common  ties  of  human  nature 
by  which  he  is  inseparably  utdted  to  his  enemy  1" 


38  LAWKILNESS   OF    WAH. 

Wliat  would  these  advocates  of  peace  say  to  him  who  struck 
them  on  the  right  cheek  ?  Would  they  turn  to  tiim  tne 
other  ?  What  would  these  patieut  moralists  say  to  him 
who  robbed  them  of  a  coat  ?  Would  they  give  a  cloak 
also  ?  What  would  these  philanthropists  say  to  him  who 
asked  them  to  lend  a  hundred  pounds  ?  Would  they  not 
turn  away.  This  is  argument  am  ad  homiui'm ;  one  exam- 
ple amongst  the  many,  of  that  low  and  dislionest  mode  of 
intellectual  warfare,  which  consists  in  exciting  the  feelings 
instead  of  convincing  the  unders.Andiiig.  It  is,  howpver, 
some  satisfaction  that  the  motive  to  the  adoption  of  ihis 
mode  of  warfare  is  itself  an  indication  of  a  bad  cause  : 
for  what  honest  reasoner  would  [)roduce  only  a  laugh,  if 
he  were  able  to  produce  conviction  ? 

We  willingly  grant  that  not  all  the  precepts  from  the 
Mount  were  designed  to  be  literally  obeyed  in  the  inter- 
course of  life.  But  what  then?  To  show  that  their  mean- 
ing is  not  literal,  is  not  to  show  that  they  do  not  forbid 
War.  We  ask  in  our  turn,  What  is  the  meaning  of  the 
precepts?  What  is  the  meaning  of  "Resist  not  evil?" 
Does  it  mean  to  allow  bombardment, — devastation, — 
slaughter?  If  it  does  not  mean  to  allow  all  this,  it  does 
not  mean  to  allow  War.  What  again  do  the  objectors  say 
is  the  meaning  of  "Love  your  enemies,"  or  of  "do  good 
to  them  that  hate  you  ?  •'  Does  it  mean,  "  ruin  tlieir 
commerce," — "  s- ik  their  fleets," — "plundor  their  cities," 
— "shoot  through  their  hearts?"  If  the  precept  does  not 
mean  to  allow  all  tliis,  it  does  not  mean  to  allow  War.  It 
is  therefore  not  at  all  necessary  here  to  discuss  the  precise 
«ignification  of  some  of  the  |iiecepts  from  the  Mount,  or  to 


THE   CHRISTIAN   SCRIPTURES.  3fl 

define  what  limits  Christianity  may  admit  in  their  appli- 
cation ;  since,  whatever  exceptions  she  may  allow,  it  is 
manifest  what  she  does  not  allow  :  *  for  if  we  give  to  our 
objectors  whatever  license  of  interpretation  they  may 
desire,  they  cannot,  without  virtually  rejecting  the  precepts, 
so  interpret  them  as  to  make  them  allow  War. 

Of  the  injunctions  that  are  contrasted  with,  "  eye  for  eye, 
and  tooth  for  tooth,"  the  entire  scope  and  purpose  is  the 
suppression  of  the  violent  passions,  and  the  inculcation  of 
forbearance,  and  forgiveness,  and  benevolence,  and  love. 
They  forbid,  not  specifically  the  act,  but  the  sphu't  of  War; 
and  this  method  of  prohibition  Christ  ordinarily  employed. 
He  did  not  often  condemn  the  individual  doctrines  or 
customs  of  the  age,  however  false  or  however  vicious ;  but 
He  condemned  the  passions  by  which  only  vice  could  exist, 
and  inculcated  the  truth  which  dismissed  every  error.  And 
this  method  was  undoubtedly  wise.  In  the  gradual  altera- 
tions of  human  wickedness,  many  new  species  of  profligacy 
might  arise  which  the  world  had  not  yet  practised  :  in  the 
gradual  vicissitudes  of  human  error,  many  new  fallacies 
might  obtain  which  the  world  had  not  yet  held  :  and  how 
were  these  errors  and  these  crimes  to  be  opposed,  but  by 
the  inculcation  of  principles  that  were  applicable  to  every 
crime  and  to  every  error  ? — principles  which  do  not  always 

•  It  is  manifest,  from  the  New  Testament,  tliat  we  are  not  required 
to  give  a  "cloak,"  in  every  case,  to  liini  who  robs  us  of  "a  coat ;"  but 
I  think  it  is  equally  manifest  that  we  are  required  to  give  it  7iot  the 
less,  because  he  has  robbed  us  :  the  circumstance  of  his  having  robbed 
us,  does  not  entail  an  obligation  to  give  ;  but  it  also  does  not  impart 
a  permission  to  withhold.  If  the  necessities  of  the  plunderer  requiie 
relief,  it  is  the  business  of  the  plundered  to  relieve  them. 


40  LAWFULNESS  OF   WAK. 

define   what  is  wrong,  but  which  tell  us  what  always  is 
right. 

SUBJECTS  OF  Christ's  benediction. 

There  are  two  modes  of  censure  or  condemnation  •  the 
one  is  to  reprobate  evil,  and  the  other  to  enforce  the  oppo- 
site good ;  and  both  these  modes  were  adopted  by  Christ. 
— He  not  only  censured  the  passions  that  are  necessary  to 
War,  but  inculcated  the  affections  which  ore  most  opposed 
to  them.  The  conduct  and  dispositions  upon  which  He 
pronounced  His  solemn  benediction  are  exceedingly  re- 
markable. They  are  these,  and  in  this  order  :  Poverty  of 
spirit; — Mourning  ; — Meekness  ; — Desire  of  right eousne.ss  ; 
— Mercy  ; — Purity  of  heart ; — Peace-making  ; — Sufferance 
of  persecution.  Now  let  the  reader  try  whether  he  can 
propose  eight  other  qualities,  to  be  retained  as  the  general 
habit  of  the  mind,  which  shall  be  more  incongruous  with 
War. 

Of  these  benedictions,  I  think  the  most  emphatical  is 
that  pronounced  upon  the  Peace-ma  hem.  "  Blessed  are 
the  peace-makers  :  for  the}'^  shall  be  called  the  children  of 
God."  Higher  praise  or  a  higher  title,  no  man  can  receive. 
Now,  I  do  not  say  that  these  benedictions  contain  an  abso- 
lute proof  that  Christ  prohibited  War,  but  I  say  they  make 
it  clear  that  He  did  not  approve  it.  He  selected  a  number 
of  subjects  for  His  solemn  approbation  ;  and  not  one  of 
them  possesses  any  congi'uity  with  War,  and  some  of  them 
cannot  possibly  e.xi.st  in  conjunction  with  it.  Can  any  one 
believe  that  He  who  made  this  selection,  and  who  distin- 
gui.slied  the  peace-makers  with  peculiar  approbation,  could 


SUBJECTS  OF  CHRIST'S   BENEDICTION.  41 

have  sanctioned  that  His  followers  should  destroy  one 
another?  Or  does  any  one  believe  that  those  who  were 
mourners,  and  meek,  and  merciful,  and  peace-making, 
could  at  the  same  time  perpetrate  such  destruction  ?  If  I 
be  told  that  a  temporary  suspension  of  Christian  disposi- 
tions, although  necessary  to  the  prosecution  of  War,  does 
not  imply  the  extinction  of  Christian  principles  ;  or  that 
these  dispositions  may  be  the  general  habit  of  the  mind, 
and  may  both  precede  and  follow  the  acts  of  War,  I 
answer  that  this  is  to  grant  all  that  I  require,  since  it 
grants  that  when  we  engage  in  War  we  abandon  Chris- 
tianity. 

MATTHEW    XXVI.  52. 

When  the  betrayers  and  murderers  of  Jesus  Christ  ap- 
proached Him,  His  followers  asked,  "  Shall  we  smite  with 
the  sword?"  and  without  waiting  for  an  answer,  one  of 
them  "  drew  his  sword,  and  smote  the  servant  of  the  high 
priest,  and  cut  off  his  right  ear." — "  Put  up  again  thy 
sword  into  his  place,"  said  his  Divine  Master,  "  for  all 
they  that  take  the  sword  shall  perish  with  the  sword." 
There  is  the  greater  importance  in  the  circumstances  of 
this  command,  because  it  prohibited  the  destruction  of 
human  life  in  a  cause  in  which  there  were  the  best  of 
possible  reasons  for  destroying  it.  The  question,  "Shall 
we  smite  with  the  sword  ? "  obviously  refers  to  the  defence 
of  the  Redeemer  from  His  assailants  by  force  of  arms. 
His  followers  were  ready  to  fight  for  Him  ;  and  if  any 
reason  for  fighting  could  be  a  good  one,  they  certainly  had 
it.  But  if,  in  defence  of  Himself  from  the  hands  of  bloody 
ruffians,  His  religion  did  not  allow  the  sword  to  be  drawn, 


42  LAWFULNESS   OF   WAR. 

for  what  reason  can  it  be  lawful  to  draw  it  ?  The  advo- 
cates of  War  are  at  least  bound  to  show  a  better  reason  for 
destroying  mankind,  than  is  contained  in  this  instance  in 
which  it  was  forbidden. 

It  will,  perhaps,  be  said,  that  the  reason  why  Christ  did 
not  suffer  Himself  to  be  defended  by  arms,  was,  that  such 
a  defence  would  have  defeated  the  purpose  for  which  He 
came  into  the  world,  namely,  to  offer  up  His  life  ;  and  that 
He  Himself  assigns  this  reason  in  the  context.  He  does 
indeed  assign  it ;  but  the  primary  reason,  the  immediate 
context  is, — "  for  all  they  that  take  the  sword  shall  perish 
with  the  sword."  The  reference  to  the  destined  sacrifice  of 
His  life  is  an  after  reference.  This  destined  sacritice  might 
perhaps  have  formed  a  reason  why  His  followers  should  not 
fight  then  ;  b\;t  the  first,  the  principal,  reason  which  He  as- 
signed, was  the  reason  why  they  should  not  fight  at  all. — 
Nor  is  it  necessary  to  define  the  precise  import  of  the 
words  "for  all  they  that  take  the  sword  shall  perish  with 
the  sword ; "  since  it  is  sufficient  for  us  all  that  they 
imply  reprobation. 

THE    APOSTLES    AND    EVANGELISTS. 

It  is  with  the  apostles  as  with  Christ  Himself.  The  in- 
cessant object  of  their  discourses  and  writings  is  the  incul- 
cation of  peace,  of  mildness,  of  placability.  It  might  be 
supposed  that  they  continually  retained  in  prospect  the  re- 
ward which  would  attach  to  "  Peace-makers."  We  ask  the 
advocate  of  War,  whether  he  discovers  in  the  writings  of 
the  apostles  or  of  the  evangelists,  any  thing  that  indicates 
their  approval  of  War.     Do  the  tenor  and  spirit  of  their 


THE  APOSTLES  AND  EVANGELISTS.  43 

writings  bear  any  congruity  with  it  ?  Are  not  their  spirit 
and  tenor  entirely  opposed  to  it  ?  We  are  entitled  to 
renew  the  observation,  that  the  pacific  nature  of  the 
apostolic  writings  proves  presumptively  that  the  writers 
disallowed  War.  That  could  not  be  allowed  by  them  as 
sanctioned  by  Christianity,  which  outraged  all  the  principles 
that  they  inculcated. 

"  Whence  come  wars  and  fightings  among  you  ?  "  is  the 
interrogation  of  the  apostle  James,  to  some  whom  he  was 
reproving  for  their  unchristian  conduct  :  and  he  answers 
himself  by  asking  them,  "  Come  they  not  hence,  even  of. 
your  lusts  that  war  in  your  members  ?  "  This  accords  pre- 
cisely with  the  argument  that  we  urge.  Christ  forbade  the 
passions  which  lead  to  War ;  and  now,  when  these  passions 
had  broken  out  into  actual  strife,  His  apostle  in  condemn- 
ing War  refers  it  back  to  their  passions.  We  have  been 
saying  that  the  passions  are  condemned,  and  therefore  War; 
and  now  again  the  apostle  James  thinks,  like  his  Master, 
that  the  most  effectual  way  of  eradicating  War  is  to  eradi- 
cate the  passions  which  produce  it. 

In  the  following  quotation  we  are  told,  not  only  what  the 
t.rms  of  the  apostles  were  not,  but  also  what  they  were. 
"  The  weapons  of  our  warfare  are  not  carnal,"  says  the 
apostle  Paul,  "  but  mighty  through  God  to  the  pulling  down 
of  strongholds  ;  and  bringing  into  captivity  every  thought  to 
the  obedience  of  Christ."  I  quote  this,  not  only  because  it 
assures  us  that  the  apostles  had  nothing  to  do  with  military 
weapons,  but  because  it  tells  us  the  object  of  their  warfare 
— the  bringing  of  every  thought  to  the  obedience  of  Christ : 
■and  this  object  I  would  beg  the  reader  to  notice  because  it 


44  LAWFULNESS   OF    WAR. 

accords  with  the  object  of  Christ  Himself  in  His  precepts 
from  the  Mount, — the  reduction  of  the  thoughts  to  obedience. 
The  apostle  doubtless  knew  that,  if  he  could  effect  this,  there 
was  little  reason  to  fear  that  his  converts  would  slaughter 
one  another.  He  followed  the  example  of  his  Master. 
He  attacked  wickedness  at  its  root ;  and  inculcated  those 
general  principles  of  purity  and  forbearance,  which  in  their 
prevalence  would  abolish  War,  as  they  would  abolish  all 
other  crimes.  The  teachers  of  Christianity  addressed  them- 
selves not  to  communities  but  to  men.  They  enforced  the 
regulation  of  the  passions  and  the  rectification  of  the  heart ; 
and  it  was  probably  clear  to  the  perceptions  of  apostles, 
although  it  is  not  clear  to  some  species  of  philosoi)hy,  that 
whatever  duties  were  binding  upon  one  man,  were  binding 
upon  ten,  upon  a  hundred,  and  upon  the  State. 

War  is  not  often  directly  noticed  in  the  writings  of  the 
apostles.  When  it  is  noticed  it  is  condemned,  just  in  that 
way  in  which  we  should  suppose  any  thing  would  be  con- 
demned that  was  notoriously  opposed  to  the  whole  system  ; 
just  as  murder  is  condemned  at  the  present  day.  Who  can 
find  in  modern  books  that  murder  is  formally  censured  ? 
We  may  find  censures  of  its  motives,  of  its  circumstances, 
of  its  degree  of  atrocity  ;  but  the  act  itself  no  one  thinks 
of  censuring,  because  every  one  knows  that  it  is  wicked. 
Setting  statutes  aside,  I  doubt  whether,  if  an  Otaheitan 
should  choose  to  argue  that  Christians  allow  murder  be- 
cause he  cannot  find  it  formally  prohibited  in  their  writ- 
ings, we  should  not  be  at  a  loss  to  find  direct  evidence 
against  him.  And  it  arises  perhaps  from  the  same  causes, 
that  a  formal  prohibition  of  War  is  not  to  be  found  in  the 


THE  APOSTLES  AND   EVANGELISTS.  46 

writings  of  the  apostles.  I  do  not  believe  they  imagined 
that  Christianity  would  ever  be  charged  with  allowing  it. 
They  write  as  if  the  idea  of  such  a  charge  never  occurred 
to  them.  They  did  nevertheless  virtually  forbid  it ;  unless 
any  one  shall  say  that  they  disallowed  the  passions  which 
occasion  War,  but  did  not  disallow  War  itself;  that  Chris- 
tianity prohibits  the  cause  but  permits  tlie  effect ;  which  is 
much  the  same  as  to  say,  that  a  law  which  forbade  the  ad- 
ministering of  arsenic  did  not  forbid  poisoning. 

But  although  the  general  tenor  of  Christianity  and  some 
of  its  particular  precepts  appear  distinctly  to  condemn  and 
disallow  War,  it  is  certain  that  different  conclusions  have 
been  formed  ;  and  many,  who  are  undoubtedly  desirous  of 
performing  the  duties  of  Christianity,  have  failed  to  per- 
ceive that  War  is  unlawful  to  them. 

In  examining  the  arguments  by  which  War  is  defended, 
two  important  considerations  should  be  borne  m  mind. 
First,  that  those  who  urge  them  are  not  sim])ly  defending 
War,  they  are  also  defending  themselves.  If  War  be  wrong, 
their  conduct  is  wrong  ;  and  the  desire  of  self-justification 
prompts  them  to  give  importance  to  whatever  arguments 
they  can  advance  in  its  favour.  Their  decisions  may  there- 
fore with  reason  be  regarded  as  in  some  degree  the  decisions 
of  a  party  in  the  cause.  The  other  consideration  is,  that 
the  defenders  of  War  come  to  the  discussion  prepossessed 
in  its  favour.  They  are  attached  to  it  by  their  earliest 
habits.  They  do  not  examine  the  question  as  a  philosopher 
would  examine  it  to  whom  the  subject  was  new.  Their 
opinions  had  been  already  formed.  They  are  discussing  a 
question  which  they  had  already  determined  :  and  every 


46  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR. 

man  who  is  acquainted  with  the  effects  of  evidence  on  the 
mind,  knows  that  under  these  circumstances  a  very  slender 
argument  in  favour  of  the  previous  opinions  possesses  more 
influence  than  any  great  ones  against  it.  Now  all  this 
cannot  be  predicated  of  the  advocates  of  Peace  ;  they  are 
itpposing  the  influence  of  habit ;  they  are  contending 
against  the  general  prejudice  ;  they  are  perhaps  dismissing 
their  own  previous  opinions  :  and  I  would  submit  it  to  the 
candour  of  the  reader,  that  these  circumstances  ought  to 
attach  in  his  mind  suspicion  as  to  the  validity  of  the 
arguments  against  us. 

THE    CENTURION 

The  narrative  of  the  centurion,  who  came  to  Jesus  at 
Capernaum  to  solicit  him  to  heal  his  servant,  furnishes  one 
of  these  arguments.  It  is  said  that  Christ  found  no  fault 
with  the  centurion's  profession  ;  that,  if  He  had  disallowed 
the  military  character.  He  would  have  taken  this  oppor- 
tunity of  censuring  it ;  and  that,  instead  of  such  censure, 
He  highly  commended  the  ofiicer,  and  said  of  him,  "I  have 
not  found  so  great  faith,  no,  not  in  Israel." 

An  obvious  weakness  in  this  argument  is  this  ; — that  it 
is  founded  not  upon  an  approval,  but  upon  silence.  Appro- 
bation is  indeed  expressed,  but  it  is  directed,  not  to  his 
arms,  but  to  his  "faith;"  and  those  who  will  read  the  nar- 
rative will  find  that  no  occasion  was  given  for  noticing  his 
profession.  He  came  to  Christ  not  as  a  military  officer,  but 
simply  as  a  deserving  man.  A  censure  of  his  profession 
might  undoubtedly  have  been  pronounced,  but  it  would 
have  been  a  gratuitous  censure,  a  censure  that  did  not 


THE  CENTURION.  47 

naturally  arise  out  of  the  case.  The  objection  is,  in  its 
greatest  weight,  presumptive  only  ;  for  none  can  be  sup- 
posed to  countenance  everything  that  he  does  not  condemn. 
To  observe  silence  *  in  such  cases,  was  indeed  the  ordinary 
practice  of  Christ.  He  very  seldom  mterfered  with  the 
civil  or  political  institutions  of  the  world.  In  these  insti- 
tutions there  was  sufficient  wickedness  around  Him  ;  but 
some  of  them,  flagitious  as  they  were,  He  never  on  any  oc- 
casion even  noticed.  His  mode  of  condemning  and  extir- 
pating political  vices  was  by  the  inculcation  of  general  rules 
of  purity,  which,  in  their  eventual  and  universal  application, 
would  reform  them  all. 

But  how  happens  it  that  Christ  did  not  notice  the  cen- 
turion's religion  ?  He  probably  was  an  idolater.  And  if 
BO,  would  there  not  be  as  good  reason  for  maintaining 
that  Christ  approved  idolatry  because  Ho  did  not  condemn 
it,  as  that  He  approved  War  because  He  did  not  condemn 
it  ?  Reasoning  from  analogy,  we  should  conclude  that 
idolatry  was  likely  to  have  been  noticed  rather  than  War  ; 
and  it  is  therefore  peculiarly  and  singularly  unapt  to  bring 
forward  the  silence  respecting  War,  as  an  evidence  of  its 
lawfulness. 

CORNELIUS. 

A  similar  argument  is  advanced  from  the  case  of  Cornelius, 
to  whom  Peter  was  sent  from  Joppa;  of  which  it  is  said  that 
although  the  Gospel  was  imparted  to    Cornelius   by  the 

*  "Christianity,  soliciting  admission  into  all  nations  of  tlie  world,  ab- 
stained, as  behoved  it,  from  mterineddling  with  the  civil  institutions  of 
any.  But  does  it  follow,  from  the  silence  of  Scripture  concerning  tliem, 
that  all  the  civil  institutions  whicli  then  prevailed  were  right,  or  that 
the  bad  siiould  not  be  exchanged  for  better  ?" — Paley. 


48  LAWFULNESS  OF   WAK. 

especial  direction  of  Heaven,  yet  we  do  not  find  that  he 
therefore  quitted  his  profession,  or  that  it  was  considered 
inconsistent  with  his  new  character.  The  objection  applies 
to  this  argument  as  to  the  last, — that  it  is  built  upon  silence, 
that  it  is  simply  negative.  We  do  not  find,  it  may  be  urged, 
that  he  quitted  the  service.  I  might  answer.  Neither  do  we 
find  that  he  continued  in  it.  We  only  know  nothing  of  the 
matter  ;  and  the  evidence  is  therefore  so  much  less  than 
proof,  as  silence  is  less  than  approbation.  Yot  that  the 
account  is  silent  respecting  any  disapprobation  of  War, 
might  have  been  a  reasonable  ground  of  argument  under 
different  circumstances.  It  might  have  been  a  reasonable 
gi-ound  of  argument,  if  the  primary  object  of  Christianity 
had  been  the  reformation  of  political  institutions;  or  perhaps 
even  if  her  primary  object  had  been  the  regulation  of  the 
external  conduct ;  but  her  primary  object  was  neither  of 
these.  She  directed  herself  to  the  reformation  of  the  heart, 
knowing  that  all  other  reformation  would  follow.  She  em- 
braced indeed  both  morality  and  policy,  and  has  reformed, 
or  will  reform,  both, — not  so  much  immediately  as  conse- 
quently, —  not  so  much  by  filtering  the  current,  as  by 
purifying  the  spring.  The  silence  of  Peter  therefore  in  the 
case  of  Cornelius  will  serve  the  cause  of  War  but  little  : 
that  little  is  diminished  when  urged  against  the  positive 
evidence  of  commands  and  prohibitions  ;  and  it  is  reduced 
to  nothingness  when  it  is  opposed  to  the  universal  tendency 
and  object  of  the  revelation. 

It  has  sometimes  been  urged  that  Christ  either  paid  taxes 
to  the  Roman  Government,  or  approved  of  their  pa}'Tnent,  at 
a  time  when  it  was  engaged  in  war,  and  when  therefore  the 


CORNELIUS.  49 

money  that  He  paid  would  be  employed  in  its  prosecution. 
This  we  shall  readily  grant  ;  but  it  a])pears  to  be  forgotten 
by  our  opponents,  that  if  this  proves  War  to  be  lawful  they 
are  proving  too  much.  These  taxes  were  thrown  into  the 
exchequer  of  the  State,  and  a  part  of  the  money  was  applied 
to  purposes  of  a  most  iniquitous  and.  shocking  nature  ; 
sometimes  probably  to  the  gratification  of  the  emperor's 
personal  vices,  and  to  his  gladiatorial  exhibitions,  etc. :  and 
certainly  to  the  support  of  a  miserable  idolatry.  If  there- 
fore the  payment  of  taxes  to  such  a  Government  proves  an 
approbation  of  War,  it  proves  an  ap])robation  of  many  other 
enormities.  Moreover,  the  argument  goes  too  far  in  rela- 
tion even  to  War ;  for  it  must  necessarily  make  Christ  ap- 
prove of  all  the  Roman  wars,  without  distinction  of  their 
justice  or  injustice, — of  the  most  ambitious,  the  most  atro- 
cious, and  the  most  aggi-essive  ;  and  these  even  our  ob- 
jectors will  not  defend.  The  paj'ment  of  tribute  by  our 
Lord  was  accordant  with  His  usual  system  of  avoiding 
direct  interference  in  the  civil  or  political  institutions  of 

the  world. 

LUKE  XXII.   36. 

"  He  that  hath  no  sword,  let  him  sell  his  garment  and 
buy  one."  *  This  is  another  passage  that  is  brought  against 
us.  "  For  what  purpose,"  it  is  asked,  "were  they  to  buy 
swords,  if  swords  might  not  be  used  ? "     It  may  be  doubted 

*  Upon  the  interpretation  of  this  jiassage  of  Scripture,  I  would  sub- 
join tlie  seutuuents  of  two  or  tliree  authors.  Bishop  Pearce  says,  "  It 
is  plain  that  Jesus  never  intended  to  make  any  resistance,  or  suffer  a 
sword  to  be  used  on  this  occasion."  And  Campbell  says,  "We  are 
sure  tiiat  he  did  not  intend  to  be  understood  literally,  but  as  speaking 
of  the  weapons  of  their  spiritual  warfare."    And  Beza  :  "  This  whole 


50  LAWFULNESS   OF  WAR. 

whether  with  some  of  those  who  advance  this  objection  it 
is  not  an  objection  of  words  rather  than  of  opinion.  It  may 
be  doubted  whether  they  themselves  think  there  is  any 
weight  in  it.  To  those,  however,  who  may  be  influenced  by 
it,  I  would  observe  that,  as  it  appears  to  me,  a  sufficient 
answer  to  the  objection  may  be  found  in  the  immediate 
context :  "  Lord,  behold  here  are  two  swords,"  said  they  ; 
and  He  immediately  answered,  "  It  is  enough."  How  could 
two  be  enough  when  eleven  were  to  be  supplied  with  them  ? 
That  swords  in  the  sense,  and  for  the  purpose,  of  military 
weapons,  were  ever  intended  in  this  passage,  there  appears 
much  reason  for  doubting.  This  reason  will  be  discovered 
by  examining  and  connecting  such  expressions  as  these  : 
"The  Son  of  Man  is  not  come  to  destroy  men's  lives,  but  ta 
save  them,"  said  our  Lord.  Yet,  on  another  occasion,  He 
says,  "I  came  not  to  send  peace  on  earth  but  a  sword."  How 
are  we  to  explain  the  meaning  of  the  latter  declaration  ? 
Obviously,  by  understanding  "  sword  "  to  mean  something 
far  other  than  steel.  There  appears  little  reason  for  sup- 
posing that  physical  weapons  were  intended  in  the  instruc- 
tion of  Chris ^.  I  believe  they  were  not  intended,  partly 
because  no  one  can  imagine  His  apostles  were  in  the  habit 
of  using  such  arms,  partly  because  they  declared  that  the 
weapons  of  their  warfare  were  7)ot  carnal,  and  partly  because 
the  word  "sword"  is  often  used  to  imply  "dissension,"  or 

speech  is  allegorical.  My  fellow  soldiers,  you  have  hitherto  lived  in 
peace,  but  now  a  dreadful  war  Is  at  hand  ;  so  that,  omitting  all  other 
things,  you  must  think  only  of  artns.  But  when  he  prayed  in  the 
garden,  and  reproved  Peter  for  smiting  with  the  sword,  lie  Himself 
showed  what  these  arms  were." — See  Peace  aiid  War,  an  Essay. 
Hatchard,  1824. 


LUKE  XXII.  36.  51 

the  religious  warfare  of  the  Christian.  Such  a  use  of  lan- 
guage is  found  in  the  last  quotation  ;  and  it  is  found  also  in 
such  expressions  as  these  :  "shield  of  faith," — "helmet  of 
salvation," — "sword  of  the  spirit," — "I  hsNQ  fought  the 
goodi  fight  of  faith." 

But  it  will  be  said  that  the  apostles  did  provide  them- 
selves with  swords,  for  on  that  same  evening  they  asked, 
"  Shall  we  smite  with  the  sword  ? "  This  is  true,  and  it 
may  probably  be  true  also,  that  some  of  them  provided 
themselves  with  swords  in  consequence  of  the  injunction  of 
their  Master.  But  what  then  ?  It  appears  to  me  that  they 
acted  on  this  occasion  upon  the  principles  upon  which  they 
had  wished  to  act  on  another,  when  they  asked,  "Wilt  Thou 
that  we  command  fire  to  come  down  from  heaven,  and  con- 
sume them  ?  "  And  that  their  Master's  principles  were  also 
the  same  in  both : — "  Ye  know  not  what  manner  of 
spirit  ye  are  of ;  for  the  Son  of  Man  is  not  come  to  destroy 
men's  lives,  but  to  save  them."  This  is  the  language  of 
Christianity ;  and  I  would  seriously  invite  him  who  now 
justifies  "destroying  men's  lives,"  to  consider  "what  manner 
of  spirit  he  is  of" 

I  think,  then,  that  no  argument  arising  from  the  instruc- 
tion to  buy  swords  can  be  maintained.  This  at  least  we 
know,  that  when  the  apostles  were  completely  commissioned, 
they  neither  used  nor  possessed  them.  An  extraordinary 
imagination  he  must  have,  who  conceives  of  an  apostle, 
preaching  peace  and  reconciliation,  crying  "forgive  injuries," 
— "  love  your  enemies," — "  render  not  evil  for  evil ;  "  and 
at  the  conclusion  of  the  discourse,  if  he  chanced  to  meet 
violence  or  insult,  promptly  drawing  his  sword  and  maiming 


62  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR. 

or  murdering  the  offender.  We  insist  upon  this  consider- 
ation. If  swords  were  to  be  worn,  swords  were  to  be  used ; 
and  there  is  no  rational  way  in  which  they  could  have  been 
used,  but  some  such  as  that  which  we  have  been  supposing. 
If  therefore  the  words,  "  He  that  hath  no  sword  let  him  sell 
his  garment  and  buy  one,"  do  not  mean  to  authorize  such  a 
iise  of  the  sword,  they  do  not  mean  to  authorize  its  use  at 
all :  and  those  who  adduce  the  passage,  must  allow  its 
application  in  such  a  case,  or  they  must  exclude  it  from  any 
application  to  their  purpose. 

JOHN    THE   BAPTI.ST. 

It  has  been  said,  again,  that  when  soldiers  came  to  John 
the  Baptist  to  inquire  of  him  what  they  should  do,  he  did 
not  direct  them  to  leave  the  service,  but  to  be  content  with 
their  wages.  This  also  is  at  best  but  a  negative  evidence- 
It  does  not  prove  that  the  military  profession  was  wrong, 
and  it  certainly  does  not  prove  that  it  was  right.  But  in 
truth,  if  it  asserted  the  latter,  Christians  have,  as  I  con- 
ceive, nothing  to  do  with  it ;  ibr  I  think  that  we  need  not 
inquire  what  .Tohn  allowed,  or  what  he  forbade.  He  con- 
fessedly belonged  to  that  system  which  required  "  an  eye 
for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  ;"  and  the  observations 
which  we  shall  by  and  by  make  on  the  authority  of  the  law 
of  Moses,  apply  therefore  to  that  of  John  the  Baptist. 
Even  if  it  could  be  proved  (which  it  cannot  be)  that  he 
allowed  wars,  he  acted  not  inconsistently  with  his  own 
Dispensation  ;  and  with  that  Dispensation  we  have  no  busi- 
ness. Yet,  if  any  one  still  insists  upon  the  authority  of  John, 
I  would  refer  him  for  an  answer  to  Jesus  Christ  Himself. 


JOHN   THE   BAPTIST.  53 

What  authority  He  attached  to  John  on  questions  relating 
to  His  own  Dispensation,  may  be  learut  from  this, — "The 
least  in  the  kingdom  of  lieaven  is  greater  than  he." 

FAR-FETCHED    ARGUMENTS. 

It  is  perhaps  no  trifling  indication  of  the  difficulty  which 
writers  have  found  in  discovering  in  the  Christian  Scrip- 
tures arguments  in  support  of  War,  that  they  have  had 
recourse  to  such  equivocal  and  far-fetched  arguments. 
Grotius,  in  his  Rights  of  War  and  Peace  adduces  a  pas- 
sage, which  he  says  is  "a  leading  point  of  evidence,  to  show 
that  the  right  of  War  is  not  taken  away  by  the  law  of  the 
Gospel."  And  what  is  this  leading  evidence  ?  That  Paul, 
in  writing  to  Timothy,  exhorts  that  prayer  should  be  made 
"for  kings!"  Another  evidence  which  this  great  man 
adduces  is,  that  Paul  suffered  himself  to  be  protected  on 
his  journey  by  a  guard  of  soldiers,  without  hinting  any 
disapprobation  of  repelling  force  by  force.  But  how  does 
Grotius  know  that  Paul  did  not  hint  this  ?  And  who  can 
imagine  that  for  a  prisoner  to  suffer  himself  to  be  guarded 
by  a  military  escort,  in  the  appointment  of  which  he  had 
no  contro^,  was  to  approve  War  ? 

But  perhaps  the  real  absence  of  sound  Christian  argu- 
ments in  favour  of  War,  is  in  no  circumstance  so  remark- 
ably intimated  as  in  the  citations  of  Milton  in  his  Christian 
Doctrine.  "With  regard  to  the  duties  of  War,"  he  quotes, 
or  refers  to,  thirty-nine  passages  of  Scripture, — -thirty-eight 
of  which  are  from  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  And  what  is  the 
individual  one  from  the  Christian  ? — "  What  king  going  to 
war  with  another  king.  etc.  ! ' 


M  LAWFULNESS  OF  WAR. 

NEGATIVE   EVIDENCE. 

Such  are  the  arguments  which  are  adduced  from  the 
Chnstian  Scriptures,  by  the  advocates  of  War.  In  these 
five  passages  the  principal  of  the  New  Testament  evidences 
in  its  favour  unquestionably  consist  :  they  are  the  passages 
which  men  of  acute  minds,  studiously  seeking  for  evidence, 
have  selected.  And  what  are  they  ?  Their  evidence  is  in 
the  majority  of  instances  negative  at  best.  A  "not"  inter- 
venes. The  centurion  was  iwt  found  fault  with  :  Cornelius 
was  not  told  to  leave  the  profession  :  John  did  not  tell  the 
soldiers  to  abandon  the  army  :  Paul  did  not  refuse  a 
military  guard.  I  cannot  forbear  to  solicit  the  reader  to 
compare  these  objections  with  the  pacific  evidence  of  the 
Gospel  which  has  been  laid  before  him  ;  I  would  rather  say, 
to  compare  it  with  the  Gospel  itself  ;  for  the  sum,  the 
tendency,  of  the  whole  revelation  is  in  our  favour. 

PROPHECIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

In  an  inquiry  whether  Christianity  allows  of  War,  there 
is  a  subject  that  always  appears  to  me  to  be  of  peculiar 
importance  ; — the  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  respect- 
ing the  arrival  of  a  period  of  universal  Peace.  The  belief 
is  perhaps  general  amongst  Christians  that  a  time  will  come 
when  vice  shall  be  eradicated  from  the  world,  when  the 
violent  passions  of  mankind  shall  be  repressed,  and  when 
the  pure  benignity  of  Christianity  shall  be  universally 
diffused.  That  such  a  period  will  come  we  indeed  know 
assuredly,  for  God  has  promised  it. 

Of  the  many  propliecies  of  the  Old  Testament  respecting 
this  period,   we  refer  only  to  a  few  from  the  writings  of 


PROPHECIES   OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  55 

Isaiah.  In  his  predictions  respecting  the  "  last  times,"  by 
which  it  is  not  disputed  that  he  referred  to  the  prevalence 
of  the  Christian  relioion,  the  prophet  says, — "  They  shall 
beat  their  swords  into  ploughshares,  and  their  spears  into 
pruning  hooks  :  nation  shall  not  lift  up  sword  against 
nation,  neither  shall  they  learn  War  any  more."  Again, 
referring  to  the  same  period,  he  says — "  They  shall  not 
hurt  or  destroy  in  all  ^ly  holy  mountain  :  for  the  earth 
shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord,  as  the  waters 
cover  the  sea."  And  again,  respecting  the  same  era, — 
"  Violence  shall  no  more  be  heard  in  ihy  land,  wasting  nor 
destruction  within  thy  borders." 

Two  things  are  to  be  observed  in  relation  to  these 
prophecies.  First,  that  it  is  the  will  of  God  that  War 
should  eventually  be  abolished.  This  consideration  is  of 
importance  ;  for  if  War  be  not  accordant  with  His  will, 
War  cannot  be  accordant  with  Christianity,  which  is  the 
revelation  of  His  will.  Our  business,  however,  is  prin- 
cipally with  the  second  consideration. — that  Gkristianity 
will  he  the  means  of  introducing  this  period  of  Peace. 
From  those  who  say  that  our  religion  sanctions  War,  an 
answer  must  be  expected  to  questions  such  as  these  : — By 
what  instrumentality,  and  by  the  diffusion  of  what  prin- 
ciples, will  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah  be  fulfilled  ?  Are  we 
to  expect  some  new  system  of  religion,  by  which  the  imper- 
fections of  Christianity  shall  be  removed  and  its  deficiencies 
supplied  ?  Are  we  to  believe  that  God  sent  His  only  Son 
into  the  world  to  institute  a  religion  such  as  this, — a 
religion  that,  in  a  few  centuries,  would  require  to  be  altered 
and  amended  ?     If  Christianity  allows  of  War,  they  must 


66  LAWFULNESS   OF   WAR. 

tell  us  what  it  is  that  is  to  extirpate  AVar.  If  she  allows 
"violence,  and  wasting,  and  destrnction,"  they  must  tell  us 
what  are  the  principles  that  are  to  produce  gentleness,  and 
benevolence,  and  forbearance. — I  know  not  what  answer 
such  inquiries  will  receive  from  the  advocate  of  War,  but 
I  know  that  Isaiah  sa3^s  the  change  will  be  effected  by 
Christianity :  and  if  any  one  still  chooses  to  expect 
another  and  a  purer  system,  an  apostle  may  perhaps  repress 
his  hopes  : — "  Though  we  or  an  angel  from  Heaven,"  says 
Paul,  "  preach  any  other  Gospel  unto  you,  than  that  which 
we  have  preached  unto  3'ou,  let  him  be  accursed." 

THE    REQUIREMENTS   OF   CHRISTIANITY    ARE   OF   PRESENT 
OBLIGATION. 

Whatever  the  principles  of  Christiauit}'  will  require 
hereafter,  they  require  now.  Christianity,  witli  its  present 
principles  and  obligations,  is  to  produce  universal  Peace. 
It  becomes  therefore  an  absurdity,  a  simple  contradiction, 
to  maintain  tliat  the  principles  of  Christianity  allow  of 
War,  when  they,  and  they  only,  are  to  eradicate  it  If  we 
have  no  other  guarantee  of  Peace  than  the  existence  of  our 
religion,  and  no  other  hope  of  Peace  than  in  its  diffusion, 
how  can  that  religion  sanction  War  ? 

The  case  is  clear.  A  more  perfect  obedience  to  that 
same  Gor^pel  which,  we  are  told,  sanctions  slaughter,  will  be 
the  means,  and  the  only  means,  of  exterminating  slaughter 
from  the  world.  It  is  not  from  an  alteration  of  Chris- 
tianity, but  from  an  assimilation  of  Christians  to  its  nature, 
that  we  are  to  hope.  It  is  because  we  violate  the  principles 
of  our  religion,  because  we  are  not  what  they  require  us  to 


THE   PRIxMITIVE   CHRISTIANS.  K 

be,  that  wars  are  continued.  If  we  will  not  be  peaceable 
let  us  t.hen  at  least  be  honest,  and  acknowledge  that  w< 
continue  to  slaughter  one  another,  not  because  Christianity 
permits  it,  but  because  we  reject  her  laws. 

THE   PRIMITIVE   CHRISTIANS. 

The  opinions  of  the  earliest  professors  of  Christianity 
upon  the  lawfulness  of  War  are  of  importance,  because  they 
who  lived  nearest  to  the  time  of  its  Founder  were  the  most 
likely  to  be  informed  of  His  intentions  and  His  will,  and  to 
practise  them  without  those  adulterations  which  we  know 
have  been  introduced  by  the  lapse  of  ages. 

During  a  considerable  period  after  the  death  of  Christ,  it 
IS  certain,  then,  that  His  followers  believed  He  had  forbid- 
den War ;  and  that,  in  consequence  of  this  belief,  many  oi 
them  refused  to  engage  in  it  whatever  were  the  consequences, 
whether  reproach,  or  imprisonment,  or  death.  These  facts 
are  indisputable.  "  It  is  as  easie,"  says  a  learned  writer  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  "  to  obscure  the  sun  at  mid-day, 
as  to  deny  that  the  primitive  Christians  renounced  all 
revenge  and  War."  Christ  and  His  apostles  delivered 
general  precepts  for  the  regulation  of  our  conduct.  It 
was  necessary  for  their  successors  to  apply  them  to  their 
practice  in  life.  And  to  what  did  they  apply  the  pacific 
precepts  w^hich  had  been  delivered  ?  They  applied  them  to 
War ;  they  were  assured  that  the  precepts  absolutely  for- 
bade it.  This  belief  they  derived  from  those  very  precept? 
on  which  we  have  insisted  ;  they  referred  expressly  to  the 
same  passages  in  the  New  Testament,  and  from  the 
authority  and  obligation  of  those  vasso.a^s  tliev  refused  to 


68  LAWFULNESS  OF   WAR. 

bear  arms.  A  few  examples  from  their  history  will  show 
with  what  undoubting  confidence  they  believed  in  the 
unlawfulness  of  War,  and  how  much  they  were  willing  to 
suffer  in  the  cause  of  Peace. 

EXAMPLE    AND   TESTIMONY   OF   EARLY   CHRISTIANS. 

Maximilian,  as  it  is  related  in  the  Acts  of  the  First 
Martyrs,  by  Ruinart,  was  brought  before  the  tribunal  to  be 
enrolled  as  a  soldier.  On  the  proconsul's  asking  his  niime, 
Maximilian  replied,  "  I  am  a  Christian,  and  cannot  fight." 
It  was  however  ordered  that  he  should  be  enrolled ;  but 
he  refused  to  serve,  still  alleging  that  he  was  a  Christian. 
He  was  immediately  told  that  there  was  no  alternative 
between  bearing  arms  and  being  put  to  death.  But  his 
fidelity  was  not  to  be  shaken  : — "  I  cannot  fight,"  said  he, 
"  if  I  die."  He  continued  steadfast  to  his  principles,  and 
was  consigned  to  the  executioner. 

The  primitive  Christians  not  only  refused  to  be  enlisted 
in  the  army,  but  when  they  embraced  Christianity,  whilst 
already  enlisted,  they  abandoned  the  profession  at  whatever 
cost.  Marcellus  was  a  centurion  in  the  legion  called 
Trajana.  Whilst  holding  this  commission  he  became  a 
Christian ;  and  believing,  in  common  with  his  fellow- 
Christians,  that  War  was  no  longer  permitted  to  him,  he 
threw  down  his  belt  at  the  head  of  the  legion,  declaring 
that  he  had  become  a  Christian,  and  that  he  would  serve 
no  longer.  He  was  committed  to  prison  ;  but  he  was  still 
faithful  to  Christianity.  "  It  is  not  lawful,"  said  he,  "  for  a 
Christian  to  bear  arms  for  any  earthly  consideration  ;  "  and 
he  waa  in  consequence  put  to  death      Almost  immediately 


EXAMPLE  OF  EARLY  CHRISTIANS.  59 

afterwards,  Cassian,  who  was  notary  to  the  same  legion, 
gave  up  his  office.  He  steadfastly  maintained  the  senti- 
ments of  Marcellus  ;  and  like  him  was  consigned  to  the 
executioner.  Martin,  of  whom  so  much  is  said  by  Sul- 
picius  Severus,  was  bred  to  the  profession  of  arms,  which, 
on  his  acceptance  of  Christianity,  he  abandoned.  To 
Julian  the  Apostate,  the  only  reason  that  we  find  he  gave 
for  his  conduct  was  this  : — "I  am  a  Christian,  and  there- 
fore I  cannot  fight." 

These  were  not  the  sentiments,  and  this  was  not  the 
conduct,  of  isolated  individuals  who  might  be  actuated 
by  individual  opinion,  or  by  their  private  interpretations  of 
the  duties  of  Christianity.  Their  principles  were  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  body.  They  were  recognised  and  defended  by 
the  Christian  writers,  their  contemporaries.  Justin  Martyr 
and  Tatian  talk  of  soldiers  and  Christians  as  distinct 
characters  ;  and  Tatian  says  that  the  Christians  declined 
even  military  commands.  Clement,  of  Alexandria  calls  his 
Christian  contemporaries  the  "  Followers  of  Peace,"  and 
expressly  tells  us  "that  the  Followers  of  Peace  used  none  of 
the  implements  of  war."  Lactantius,  another  early  Chris- 
tian, says  expressly,  "  It  can  never  be  lawful  for  a  righteous 
man  to  go  to  war."  About  the  end  of  the  second  century, 
Celsus,  one  of  the  opponents  of  Christianity,  charged  the 
Christians  with  refusing  to  bear  arms  even  in  case  of 
necessity.  Origen,  the  defender  of  the  Christians,  does  not 
think  of  denying  the  fact ;  he  admits  the  refusal,  and 
justifies  it  because  War  was  unlawful.  Even  after  Chris- 
tianity had  spread  over  almost  the  whole  of  the  known 
world,   TertuUian,   in  speaking  of  a  part  of  the  Roman 


bO  LAWFULNESS  OF   WAR. 

armies,  including  more  than  one-third  of  the  standing 
legions  of  Rome,  distinctly  informs  us  that  "not  a  Christian 
could  be  found  amongst  them." 

All  this  is  explicit.  The  evidence  of  the  following  facts 
IS  however  yet  more  determinate  and  satisfactory.  Some 
of  tlie  arguments  which,  at  the  present  day,  are  brought 
against  the  advocates  of  Peace,  were  then  urged  against 
these  early  Christians  ;  and  the?''  arguments  they  examined 
and  repelled.  This  indicates  investigation  and  inquiry, 
and  manifests  that  their  belief  as  to  the  unlawfulness  of 
War  was  not  a  vague  opinion,  hastily  admitted  and 
loosplv  floating  amongst  them,  but  that  it  was  the  result 
of  deliberate  examination,  and  a  consequent  firm  conviction 
that  vin"ist  had  forbidden  it.  The  very  same  arguments 
which  art;  brought  in  defence  of  War  at  the  present  day, 
were  brought  against  the  Christians  sixteen  hundred  years 
ago  ;  and  sixteen  hundred  years  ago  they  were  repelled  by 
these  faithful  contenders  for  the  purity  of  our  religion.  It 
is  remarkable,  too,  that  Tertullian  appeals  to  the  precepts 
from  the  Mount,  in  proof  of  those  principles  on  which  tliis 
Essay  has  been  insisting  : — that  the  dispositions  which  the 
precepts  inculcate  are  not  compatible  mth  War,  and  that 
War  therefore  is  irreconcilable  with  Christianity. 

If  it  be  possible,  a  still  stronger  evidence  of  the  primitive 
belief  is  contained  in  the  circumstance,  that  some  of  the 
Christian  authors  declared  that  the  refusal  of  the  Christians 
CO  bear  arms  was  a  fulfilment  of  ancient  prophecy.  The 
peculiar  strength  of  this  evidence  consists  in  this, — that  the 
fact  of  a  refusal  to  bear  arms  is  assumed  as  notorious  and 
unquestioned.      Irenajus,  who  lived  about  the  year  180 


EXAMPLE  OF  EARLY  CHRISTIANS.  61 

aflirins  that  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  which  declared  that 
men  should  turn  their  swords  into  ploughshares  and  their 
spears  into  pruning-hooks  had  been  fulfilled  in  his  time ; 
"for  the  Christians,"  says  he,  "have  changed  their  swords 
and  their  lances  into  instruments  of  peace,  and  they  know 
not  how  to  fight."  Justin  Martyr,  his  contemporary,  writes, 
— "  That  the  prophecy  is  fulfilled  you  have  good  reason  to 
believe,  for  we,  who  in  times  past  killed  one  another,  do  not 
now  fight  with  our  enemies''  Tertullian,  who  lived  later, 
says,  "  You  must  confess  that  the  prophecy  has  been  ac- 
complished, as  far  as  the  practice  of  every  individual  is 
concerned  to  whom  it  is  applicable." 

It  has  been  sometimes  said,  that  the  motive  which  influ- 
enced the  early  Christians  to  refuse  to  engage  in  War,  con- 
sisted in  the  idolatry  which  was  connected  with  the  Roman 
armies. — One  motive  this  idolatry  unquestionably  afforded; 
but  it  is  obvious,  from  the  quotations  which  we  have  given, 
that  their  belief  of  the  unlawfulness  oi  fighting,  independent 
of  any  question  of  idolatry,  was  an  insuperable  objection  to 
engaging  in  War.  Their  words  are  explicit :  "  I  cannot^^A^, 
if  I  die." — "  I  am  a  Christian,  and  therefore  I  cannot  ^"^Z^^." 
— "  Christ,"  says  Tertullian,  ''by  disarming  Peter,  disarmed 
every  soldier ;  "  and  Peter  was  not  about  to  fight  in  the 
armies  of  idolatry.  So  entire  was  their  conviction  of  the 
incompatibility  of  War  with  our  religion,  that  they  would 
not  even  be  present  at  the  gladiatorial  fights,  "  lest,"  says 
Theophilus,  "  we  should  become  partakers  of  the  murders 
committed  there."  Can  anyone  believe  that  they,  who 
would  not  even  witness  a  battle  between  two  men,  would 
themselves  fight  in  a  battle  between  armies  ?     And  the 


'62  LAWFULNESS   OF   WAR. 

destruction  of  a  gladiator,  it  should  be  remembered,  was 
authorized  by  the  State  as  much  as  was  the  destruction  of 
enemies  in  war. 

It  is  therefore  indisputable,  that  the  Christians  who  lived 
nearest  to  the  time  of  our  Saviour,  believed  with  undoubting 
confidence,  that  He  had  unequivocally  forbidden  War  ; — 
that  they  openly  avowed  this  belief ;  and  that  in  support  of 
it  they  were  willing  to  sacrifice,  and  did  sacrifice,  their  for- 
tunes and  their  lives. 

CHRISTIAN    SOLDIERS. 

Christians  it  is  true  afterwards  became  soldiers.  But  when? 
When  their  general  fidelity  to  Christianity  became  relaxed; 
— when,  in  other  respects,  they  violated  its  principles ; — 
when  they  had  begun  "  to  dissemble,"  and  "  to  falsify  their 
word,"  and  "  to  cheat ;  " — when  "  Christian  casuists  "  had 
persuaded  them  that  they  might  "  sit  at  meat  in  the  idoFs 
temple ;  " — when  Christians  accepted  even  the  priesthoods 
of  idolatry.  In  a  word  they  became  soldiers  when  they  had 
ceased  to  be  Christians. 

The  departure  from  the  original  faithfulness,  was  how- 
ever not  suddenly  general.  Like  every  other  corruption, 
War  obtained  by  degrees.  During  the  first  two  hundred 
years,  not  a  Christian  soldier  is  upon  record.  In  the  third 
century,  when  Christianity  became  partially  corrupted. 
Christian  soldiers  were  common.  The  number  increased 
with  the  increase  of  the  general  profligacy  ;  until  at  last,  in 
the  fourth  century.  Christians  became  soldiers  without  hesi- 
tation, and  i>erhaps  without  remorse.  Here  and  there, 
however,  an  ancinnt  father  still  lifted  up  his  voice  for  Peace; 


CHRISTIAN   SOLDIERS.  63 

but  these,  one  after  another,  dropping  from  the  world,  the 
tenet  that  War  is  unlawful  ceased  at  length  to  be  a  tenet 
of  the  church. 

Let  it  always  be  borne  in  mind  by  those  who  are  ad- 
vocating War,  that  they  are  contending  for  a  corruption 
which  their  forefathers  abhorred  ;  and  that  they  are  making 
Jesus  Christ  the  sanctioner  of  crimes,  which  His  purest  fol- 
lowers offered  up  their  lives  because  they  would  not  commit. 

WARS   OF   THE   JEWS. 

An  argument  has  sometimes  been  advanced  in  favour  of 
War,  from  the  divine  communications  to  the  Jews  under 
the  administration  of  Moses.  It  has  been  said,  that  as 
wars  were  allowed  and  enjoined  to  that  people,  they  cannot 
be  inconsistent  with  the  will  of  God. 

To  such  an  argument  our  answer  is  short  : — If  C/n-is- 
tianity  prohibits  War,  there  is  to  Christians  an  end  of  the 
controversy.  War  cannot  be  justified  by  the  referring  to 
any  antecedent  Dispensation. 

But  even  under  the  Old  Dispensation  the  prophets  foresaw 
that  wars  were  not  accordant  with  the  universal  Will  of  God, 
since  they  predicted  that,  when  that  Will  should  be  fulfilled, 
War  should  be  eradicated  from  the  world.  And  by  what 
Dispensation  was  that  Will  to  be  fulfilled  ?  By  that  of  the 
"  Rod  out  of  the  stem  of  Jesse."  It  is  worthy  of  recollec- 
tion, too,  that  David  was  forbidden  to  build  the  tenipU 
because  he  had  shed  blood.  "  As  for  me  it  was  in  my  mind 
to  build  an  house  unto  the  name  of  the  Lord  my  God ;  but 
the  word  of  the  Lord  came  to  me,  saying.  Thou  hast  shed 
blood  abundantly,  and  hast  made  gi-eat  wars:  thou  shall 


64  LAWFULNESS  OF   WAR. 

Qot  build  an  house  unto  my  name,  becanse  thou  hast  shed 
much  blood  upou  the  earth  in  My  sight."  So  little  accor- 
dancy  did  War  possess  with  the  purer  offices  even  of  tbo 
Jewish  Dispensation. 

DUTIES   OF   INDIVIDUALS    AND    NATIONS. 

Perhaps  the  argument  to  which  the  greatest  importance 
is  attached  by  the  advocates  of  War,  and  by  which  thinking 
men  are  chiefly  induced  to  acquiesce  in  its  lawfulness  is  this, 
— That  a  distinction  is  to  be  made  between  rules  which  ap- 
ply to  us  as  individiuils,  and  rules  which  apply  to  us  a^  sub- 
jects of  the  State;  and  that  the  pacific  injunctions  of  Christ 
from  the  Mount,  and  all  the  other  kindred  commands  and 
prohibitions  of  the  Christian  Scriptures,  have  no  reference 
to  our  conduct  as  members  of  the  political  body.  In  the 
judgment  of  the  wTiter  this  argument  possesses  no  force  or 
application. 

When  persons  make  such  broad  distinctions  between  the 
obligations  of  Christianity  on  private  and  on  public  affairs, 
the  proof  of  the  rectitude  of  the  distinction  must  be  ex- 
pected of  those  who  make  it.  General  rules  are  laid  down 
by  Christianity,  of  which  in  some  cases  the  advocate  of  War 
denies  the  applicability.  He,  therefore,  is  to  produce  the 
reason  and  the  authority  for  the  exception.  And  that 
authority  must  be  a  competent  authority, — the  authority, 
mediately  or  immediately,  of  God.  It  is  to  no  purpose  for 
such  a  person  to  tell  us  of  the  magnitude  of  political  affairs, 
— of  the  greatness  of  the  interests  which  they  involve, — of 
"  necessity," — or  of  expediency.  All  these  are  very  proper 
considerations  in  subordination  to  the  Moral  Law ; — other- 


DUTIES  OF   INDIVIDUALS  AND   NATIONS.  65 

wise  they  are  wholly  nugatory  and  irrelevant.  Let  the 
reader  observe  the  manner  in  which  the  argument  is  sup- 
ported.—If  an  individual,  it  is  argued,  suffers  aggression, 
there  is  a  power  to  which  he  can  apply  that  is  above  him- 
self and  above  the  aggi-essor  ;  a  power  by  which  the  bad 
passions  of  those  around  him  are  restrained,  or  by  which 
their  aggressions  are  punished.  But  amongst  nations  there 
is  no  acknowledged  superior  or  common  arbitrator.  Even 
if  there  were,  there  is  no  way  in  which  its  decisions  coidd 
be  enforced,  but  by  the  sword.  War  therefore  is  the  only 
means  which  one  nation  possesses  of  protecting  itself  from 
the  aggression  of  another.  The  reader  will  observe  the 
fundamental  fallacy  upon  which  the  argument  proceeds.  It 
assumes,  that  the  reason  why  an  individual  is  not  permitted 
to  use  violence  is,  that  the  laivs  will  use  it  for  him.  Here 
is  the  error  ;  for  the  foundation  of  the  duty  of  forbearance 
in  pi'ivate  life,  is  not  that  the  laws  will  punish  aggression, 
but  that  Christianity  requires  forbearance. 

Undoubtedly,  if  the  existence  of  a  common  arbitrator 
were  the  foundation  of  the  duty,  the  duty  would  not  be 
binding  upon  nations.  But  that  which  we  require  to  be 
proved  is  this, — that  Christianity  exonerates  nations  from 
those  duties  which  slie  has  imposed  upon  individuals.  This 
the  present  argument  does  not  prove  :  and,  in  truth,  with  a 
singular  unhappiness  in  its  application,  it  assumes,  in  effect, 
that  she  has  imposed  these  duties  upon  neither  the  one  nor 
the  other. 

If  it  be  said,  that  Christianity  allows  to  individuals  some 
degree  and  kind  of  resistance,  and  that  some  resistance  is 
therefore  lawful  to  States,  we  do  not  deny  it.     But  if  it  b«» 


66  LAWFULNESS  OF   WAR. 

said,  that  the  degree  of  lawful  resistance  extends  to  the 
slaughter  of  our  fellow  Christians — that  it  extends  to  War, 
— we  do  deny  it :  we  say  that  the  rules  of  Christianity 
cannot,  by  any  possible  latitude  of  interpretation,  be  made 
to  extend  to  it.  The  duty  of  forbearance,  then,  is  ante- 
cedent to  all  considerations  respectiUj^  the  condition  of  man ; 
and,  whether  he  be  under  the  protection  of  laws  or  not,  the 
duty  of  forbearance  is  imposed. 

The  only  truth  which  appears  to  be  elicited  by  the 
present  argument  is,  that  the  difficulty  of  obeying  the  for- 
bearing rules  of  Christianity  is  greater  in  the  case  of  nations 
than  in  the  case  of  individuals  :  the  obligation  to  obey  them 
is  the  same  in  both.  Nor  let  any  one  urge  the  difficulty  of 
obedience  in  opposition  to  the  duty  ;  for  he  who  does  this 
has  yet  to  learn  one  of  the  most  awful  rules  of  his  religion, 
— a  rule  that  was  enforced  by  the  precepts,  and  more  es- 
pecially by  the  final  example,  of  Christ,  of  apostles,  and 
of  martyrs, — the  rule  which  requires  that  we  should  be 
"  obedient  even  unto  death." 

Let  it  not,  however,  be  supposed  that  we  believe  the 
difficulty  of  forbearance  would  be  as  great  in  practice  as  it  is 
great  in  theory.  Our  interests  are  commonly  promoted  by 
the  fulfilment  of  our  duties  ;  and  we  hope  hereafter  to 
show  that  the  fulfilment  of  the  duty  of  forbearance  forms 
no  exception  to  the  applicability  of  the  rule. 

OFFENSIVE    AND    DKIENSIVE    WAR. 

The  intelligent  reader  will  have  perceived  that  the  "War" 
of  which  we  speak  is  all  War,  without  reference  to  its 
objects,  whether  offensive  or  defensive.    In  truth,  respecting 


OFFENSIVE   AND   DEFENSIVE   WAR.  67 

any  other  than  defensive  War,  it  is  scarcely  worth  while  to 
entertain  a  question,  since  no  one  with  whom  we  are  con- 
cerned to  reason,  will  advocate  its  opposite.  Some  persons 
indeed  talk  with  much  complacency  of  their  reprobation  of 
offensive  War.  Yet  to  reprobate  no  more  than  this,  is  only 
to  condemn  that  which  wickedness  itself  is  not  wont  to 
justify.  Even  those  who  practise  offensive  War  affect  to 
veil  its  nature  by  calling  it  by  another  name. 

In  conformity  with  this,  we  find  that  it  is  to  defence  that 
the  peaceable  precepts  of  Christianity  are  directed.  Offence 
appears  not  to  have  even  suggested  itself.  It  is,  "  Resist 
not  evil:"  it  is,  "Overcome  evil  with  good:"  it  is,  "Do 
good  to  them  that  hate  you  :  "  it  is,  "  Love  your  enemies: " 
it  is,  "Render  not  evil  for  evil:"  it  is,  "Unto  him  that 
smiteth  thee  on  the  one  cheek."  All  this  supposes  previous 
offence,  or  injury,  or  violence  ;  and  it  is  then  that  forbear- 
ance is  enjoined. 

It  is  common,  with  those  who  justify  defensive  War,  to 
identify  the  question  with  that  of  individual  self-defence ; 
and  although  the  questions  are  in  practice  sufficiently  dis- 
similar, it  has  been  seen  that  we  do  not  object  to  their  being 
regarded  as  identical.  The  Rights  of  Self-Defence  have 
already  been  discussed,  and  the  conclusions  to  which  the 
Moral  Law  appears  to  lead,  afford  no  support  to  the  advo- 
cate of  Wai.     [See  Dymond's  Essays,  Eighth  Ed.,  p.  259.] 

We  say  the  questions  are  practically  dissimilar  ;  so  that, 
if  we  had  a  right  to  kill  a  man  in  self-defence,  very  few 
wars  would  be  shown  to  be  lawful.  Of  the  wars  which  are 
prosecuted,  some  are  simply  wars  of  aggression  ;  some  are 
for  the  maintenance  of  a  balance  of  power ;    some  are  m 


68  LAWFULNESS  OP   WAR. 

assertion  of  technical  rights ;  and  some,  antioubtedly,  to 
repel  invasion  'Die  last  are  perhaps  the  fewest ;  and  of 
these  only  it  can  be  .said  that  they  bear  any  analogy  what- 
ever to  the  case  which  is  supposed ;  and  even  in  these,  the 
analogy  is  seldom  complete.  It  has  rarely  indeed  happened 
that  wars  have  been  undertaken  simply  for  the  preservation 
of  life,  and  that  no  other  alternative  has  lemained  to  a 
people  than  to  kill,  or  to  be  killed.  And  let  it  be  remem- 
bered, that  unless  this  alternative  alone  remains,  the  case 
of  individual  self-defence  is  n-relevant ;  it  applies  not, 
practically,  to  the  subject. 

But  indeed  you  cannot  in  practice  make  distinctions, 
even  moderately  accurate,  between  defensive  War  and  War 
for  other  purposes. 

Supposing  the  Christian  Scriptures  had  said.  An  army 
may  fight  in  its  own  defence,  but  not  for  any  otiier  purpose. 
— Whoever  will  attempt  to  apply  this  rule  in  practice,  will 
find  that  he  has  a  very  wide  range  of  justifiable  warfare  ;  a 
range  that  will  embrace  many  more  wars  than  moralists, 
laxer  than  we  shall  suppose  them  to  be,  are  willing  to  defend. 
If  an  army  may  fight  in  defence  of  their  own  lives,  they 
may  and  they  must  fight  in  defence  of  the  lives  of  others  : 
if  they  may  fight  in  defence  of  the  lives  of  others,  they 
will  fight  in  defence  of  their  property  :  if  in  defence  of 
property,  they  will  fight  in  defence  of  political  rights  :  if  in 
defence  of  rights,  they  will  fight  in  promotion  of  interests  : 
if  in  promotion  of  interests,  they  will  fight  in  promotion  of 
their  glory  and  their  crimes.  Now  let  any  man  of  honesty 
look  over  the  gradations  by  which  we  arrive  at  this  climax, 
and  I  believe  he  will  find  that,  in  practice,  no  curb  can  be 


OFFENSIVE  AND  DEFENSIVE  WAR.  69 

placed  upon  the  conduct  of  an  army  until  they  reach  that 
climax.  There  is  indeed  a  wide  distance  between  fighting 
in  defence  of  life,  and  fighting  in  furtherance  of  our  crimes ; 
but  the  steps  which  lead  from  one  to  the  other  will  follow 
in  inevitable  succession.  I  know  that  the  letter  of  our  rule 
excludes  it,  but  I  know  that  the  rule  will  be  a  letter  only. 
It  is  very  easy  for  us  to  sit  in  our  studies,  and  to  point  the 
commas,  and  semicolons,  and  periods,  of  the  soldier's  career : 
it  is  very  easy  for  us  to  say  he  shall  stop  at  defence  of  life, 
or  at  protection  of  property,  or  at  the  support  of  rights ; 
but  armies  will  never  listen  to  us  :  we  shall  be  only  the 
Xerxes  of  morality,  throwing  our  idle  chains  into  the  lom- 
pestuous  ocean  of  slaughter. 

WARS    rt.LW\YS   AGGRESSIVE. 

What  IS  The  testimony  of  experience?  .When  nations 
are  mutually  exasperated,  and  armies  are  levied,  and  battles 
are  fought,  does  not  every  one  know  that  with  whatever 
motives  of  defence  one  party  may  have  begun  the  contest, 
both  in  turn  become  aggressors  ?  In  the  fury  of  slaughter 
soldiers  do  not  attend,  they  cannot  attend,  to  questions  of 
aggression.  Their  business  is  destruction,  and  their  busi- 
ness they  will  perform.  If  the  army  of  defence  obtains 
success,  it  soon  becomes  an  army  of  aggression.  Having 
repelled  the  invader,  it  begins  to  punish  him.  If  a  war  has 
once  begun,  it  is  vain  to  think  of  distinctions  of  aggression 
and  defence.  Moralists  may  talk  of  distinctions,  but  sol- 
diers will  make  none  ;  and  none  can  be  made ;  it  is  outside 
the  limits  of  possibility. 


70  LAWFULNESS  OF   WAR. 

PALEY. 

Indeed  some  of  the  definitions  of  defensive  or  of  just 
War  which  are  proposed  by  moralists,  indicate  how  impos- 
sible it  is  to  confine  warfare  within  any  assignable  limits. 
"  The  objects  of  just  War,"  says  Paley,  "  are  precaution, 
defence,  or  reparation." — "  Every  just  war  supposes  an 
injury  perpetrated,  attempted,  or  feared." 

I  shall  acknowledge  that,  if  these  be  justifying  motives 
to  War,  I  see  very  little  purpose  in  talking  of  morality 
upon  the  subject. 

It  is  in  vain  to  expatiate  on  moral  obligations,  if  we  are 
at  liberty  to  declare  war  whenever  an  "  injury  is  feared  :  " 
— an  injury,  without  limit  to  its  insignificance  !  a  fear, 
without  stipulation  for  its  reasonableness  !  The  judges  also 
of  the  reasonableness  of  fear,  are  to  be  they  who  are  under 
its  influence ;  and  who  so  likely  to  judge  amiss  as  those 
who  are  afraid  ?  Sounder  philosophy  than  this  has  told  us, 
that  "  he  who  has  to  reason  upon  his  duty  when  the  temp- 
tation to  transgress  it  is  before  him,  is  almost  sure  to  reason 
himself  into  an  error." 

Violence,  and  rapine,  and  ambition,  are  not  to  be  re- 
strained by  morality  like  this.  It  may  serve  for  the  specu- 
lations of  a  study  ;  but  we  will  venture  to  affirm  that 
mankind  will  never  be  controlled  by  it.  Moral  rules  are 
useless,  if  from  their  own  nature  they  cannot  be,  or  will  not 
be,  applied.  Who  believes  that  if  kings  and  conquerors 
may  fight  when  they  have  fears,  they  will  not  fight  when 
they  have  them  not  ?  The  morality  allows  too  much 
latitude  to  the  passions,  to  retain  uiy  practical  restraint 
upon  them.     And  a  morali'-y  that  will  not  be  practised, — I 


PALEY.  71 

had  almost  said,  that  cannot  be  practised, — is  a  useless 
morality.  It  is  a  theory  of  morals.  We  want  clearer  and 
more  exclusive  rules  ;  we  want  more  obvious  and  immediate 
sanctions.  It  were  in  vain  for  a  philosopher  to  say  to  a 
general  who  was  burning  for  glory,  "  You  are  at  liberty  to 
engage  in  the  war  provided  you  have  suffered,  or  fear  you 
will  suffer,  an  injury ;  otherwise  Christianity  prohibits  it." 
He  will  tell  him  of  twenty  injuries  that  have  been  suffered, 
of  a  hundred  that  have  been  attempted,  and  of  a  thousand 
that  he  fears.  And  what  answer  can  the  philosopher  make 
to  him  ? 

WAR   WHOLLY    FORBIDDEN. 

If  these  are  the  proper  standards  of  just  War,  there  will 
be  little  difficulty  in  proving  any  war  to  be  just,  except 
indeed  that  of  simple  aggression  ;  and,  by  the  rules  of  this 
morality,  the  aggressor  is  difficult  of  discovery,  for  he  whom 
we  choose  to  "  fear,"  may  say  that  he  had  previous  "  fear  " 
of  us,  and  that  his  "  fear"  prompted  the  hostile  symptoms 
which  made  us  "fear"  again.  The  truth  is,  that  to  attempt 
to  make  any  distinctions  upon  the  subject  is  vain.  War 
must  be  wholly  foi-bidden,  or  allowed  without  restriction  to 
defence ;  for  no  definitions  of  lawful  and  unlawful  War, 
will  be,  or  can  be,  attended  to.  If  the  principles  of  Chris- 
tianity, in  any  case,  or  for  any  purpose,  allow  armies  to 
meet  and  to  slaughter  one  another,  her  principles  will  never 
conduct  us  to  the  period  which  Prophecy  has  assured  us 
they  shall  produce.  There  is  no  hope  of  an  eradication  of 
War,  but  by  an  absolute  and  total  abandonment  of  it 


72  EFFECTS  OF   ADHERING  TO   MORAL  LAW. 

OP  THE  PROBABLE  PRACTICAL  EFFECTS 

OF  ADHERING  TO  THE  MORAL  LAW 

IN   RESPECT   TO   WAR. 

We  have  seen  that  the  duties  of  the  reh'gion  which  God 
nas  imparted  to  mankind  require  irresistance ;  and  surely 
it  is  reasonable  to  hope,  even  without  a  reference  to  experi- 
ence, that  He  will  make  our  irresistance  subservient  to 
our  interests : — that  if,  for  the  purpose  of  conform  lug  to 
His  will,  we  subject  ourselves  to  difficulty  or  danger,  He 
will  protect  us  in  our  obedience,  and  direct  it  to  our  benefit : 
— that  if  He  requires  us  not  to  be  concernsfi  in  War,  He 
will  preserve  us  in  Peace  : — that  He  will  not  desert  those 
who  have  no  other  protection,  and  who  have  abandoned  all 
other  protection  because  they  confide  in  His  alone. 

This  we  may  reverently  hoj)e ;  yet  it  is  never  to  be  for- 
gotten that  our  apparent  interests  in  the  present  life  are 
sometimes,  in  the  economy  of  God,  made  subordinate  to  our 
interests  in  futurity. 

Y''et,  even  in  reference  only  to  the  present  state  of  exist- 
ence, I  believe  we  shall  find  that  the  testimony  of  experience 
is,  that  forbearance  is  most  conducive  to  our  interests. 
There  is  practical  truth  in  the  position  that  "When  a  man's 
ways  please  the  Lord,  He  maketh  even  his  enemies  to  be  at 
peace  with  him." 

QUAKERS   IN    AMERICA   AND    IRELAND. 

The  reader  of  American  history  will  recollect,  that  in  the 
beginning  of  the  last  century  a  desultory  and  most  dreadful 
warfare  was  carried  on  by  the  natives  against  the  European 
aettlers ;  a  warfare  that  was  provoked — as  such  warfare  has 


QUAKERS   IN  AMERICA   AND   IRELAND.  73 

almost  always  originally  been — by  the  unjust  and  violent  con- 
duct of  the  Christians.  The  mode  of  destruction  was  secret 
and  sudden.  The  barbarians  sometimes  lay  in  wait  for  those 
who  might  come  Nvithin  their  reach  on  the  highway  or  in 
the  fields,  and  shot  them  without  warning  ;  and  sometimes 
they  attacked  the  Europeans  in  their  houses,  "scalping 
some,  and  knocking  out  the  brains  of  others."  From  this 
horrible  warfare  the  inhabitants  sought  safety  by  abandon- 
ing their  homes,  and  retiring  to  fortified  places,  or  to  the 
neighbourhood  of  garrisons  ;  and  those  whom  necessity  still 
compelled  to  pass  beyond  the  limits  of  such  protection, 
provided  themselves  with  arms  for  their  defence.  But 
amidst  this  dreadful  desolation  and  universal  terror,  the 
Society  of  Friends,  who  were  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
whole  population,  were  steadfast  to  their  principles.  They 
would  neither  retire  to  garrisons,  nor  provide  themselves 
with  arms.  They  remained  openly  in  the  country,  whilst 
the  rest  were  flying  to  the  forts.  They  still  pursued  their 
occupations  in  the  fields  or  at  their  homes,  without  a  weapon 
either  for  annoyance  or  defence.  And  what  was  their  fate  ? 
They  lived  in  security  and  quiet.  The  habitation  which, 
to  his  armed  neighbour,  was  the  scene  of  murder  and  of 
the  scalping-knife,  was  to  the  unarmed  Quaker  a  place  of 
safety  and  of  peace. 

Three  of  the  Society  were  however  killed.  And  who 
were  they  ?  They  were  three  who  abandoned  their  princi- 
ples. Two  of  these  victims  were  men  who,  in  the  simple 
language  of  the  narrator,  "  used  to  go  to  their  labour  with- 
out any  weapons,  and  trusted  to  the  Almighty,  and  de- 
pended on  His  providence  to  protect  them  (it  being  their 


74  EFFECTS   OF   ADHERING   TO   MORAL   LAW. 

principle  not  to  use  weapons  of  war  to  otlentl  others,  or  to 
defend  themselves) ;  but  a  spirit  of  distrust  taking  place 
in  their  minds,  they  took  weapons  of  war  to  defend  them- 
selves ;  and  the  Indians, — who  had  seen  them  several  times 
without  them,  and  let  them  alone,  saying  they  were  peace- 
able men  and  hurt  nobody,  therefore  they  would  not  hurt 
them, — now  seeino-  them  have  guns,  and  supposing  they 
designed  to  kill  the  Indians,  therefore  shot  the  men  dead." 
The  third  whose  life  was  sacrificed  was  a  woman,  who 
"  had  remained  in  her  habitation,"  not  thinking  herself 
warranted  in  goiui;  "  to  a  fortified  place  for  preservation, 
neither  she,  her  son,  nor  daughter,  nor  to  take  thither  the 
little  ones ;  but  the  poor  woman  after  some  time  began  to 
(et  in  a  slavish  fear,  and  advised  her  children  to  go  with  her 
to  a  fort  not  far  from  their  dwelling."  She  went ; — and 
shortly  afterwards  "  the  bloody,  cruel  Indians,  lay  by  the 
w^ay,  and  killed  her."  {^Select  Anecdotes,  by  John  Barclay, 
pp.  71,  79.] 

The  fate  of  the  Quakers  during  the  Rebellion  in  Ireland 
was  nearly  similar.  It  is  well  known  that  the  Rebellion 
was  a  time  not  only  of  open  War  but  of  cold-blooded  mur- 
der; of  the  utmost  fury  of  bigotry,  and  of  the  utmost  exas- 
peration of  revenge.  Yet  the  Quakers  were  preserved  even 
to  a  proverb  ;  and  when  strangers  i)assed  through  streets  of 
ruin  and  observed  :i  house  standing  uninjured  and  alone, 
they  would  sometimes  point,  and  say,  "  That,  doubtless,  is 
the  house  of  a  Quaker."  *  So  complete  indeed  was  the 
preservation   which  these  people  experienced,   that  in  an 

*  The  Moravians,  whose  principles  upon  the  subject  of  war  were  similar 
to  those  of  the  Quakers,  experienced  also  similar  preservation. 


QUAKERS    IN    AMERICA    AND   IRELAND.  75 

official  document  of  the  Society  they  say, — "  No  member  of 
our  Society  fell  a  sacrifice  but  one  young  man  ;  "  and  that 
young  man  had  assumed  regimentals  and  arms.  [Hancock's 
Principles  of  Pence  hJxempliJiedS\ 

It  were  to  no  purpose  to  say,  in  opposition  to  the  evidence 
of  these  facts,  that  they  form  an  exception  to  a  general 
rule. — The  exception  to  the  rule  consists  in  the  trial  of  the 
experiment  of  non-resistance,  not  in  its  success.  Neither 
were  it  to  any  purpose  to  say,  that  the  savages  of  America, 
or  the  desperadoes  of  Ireland,  spared  the  Quakers  because 
they  were  previously  known  to  be  an  unoffending  people,  or 
because  the  Quakers  had  previously  gained  the  love  of  these 
by  forbearance  or  good  offices  : — we  concede  all  this;  it  is  a 
part  of  the  argument  which  we  maintain.  We  say,  that  a 
uniform,  undeviating  regard  to  the  peaceable  obligations  of 
Christianity  becomes  the  safeguard  of  those  who  practise  it. 
We  venture  to  maintain  that  no  reason  whatever  can  be 
assigned,  why  the  fate  of  the  Quakers  would  not  be  the 
fate  of  all  who  should  adopt  their  conduct.  No  reason  can 
be  assigned  why,  if  their  number  had  been  multiplied  ten- 
fold or  a  hundred-fold,  they  would  not  have  been  preserved. 
If  there  be  such  a  reason,  let  us  hear  it.  The  American 
and  Irish  Quakers  were,  to  the  rest  of  the  community,  what 
one  nation  is  to  a  continent.  And  we  must  require  the 
advocate  of  War  to  produce  (that  which  has  never  yet  been 
produced)  a  reason  for  believing  that,  although  individuals 
exposed  to  destruction  were  preserved,  a  nation  exposed  to 
destruction  would  be  destroyed.  We  do  not  however  say 
that,  if  a  people  in  the  customary  state  of  men's  passions 
should  be  assailed  by  an  invader,  and  should  on  a  suddeD 


76  EFFECTS  OF  ADiIERIN(}   TO   MORAL  LAW. 

choose  to  declare  that  they  would  try  whether  Providence 
would  protect  them, — of  such  a  ))eople,  we  do  not  say  that 
they  would  experience  protectioti,  and  that  none  of  them 
would  bs  killed  :  but  we  say,  that  the  evidence  of  experi- 
ence is  that  a  people  who  habitnally  regard  the  obligations 
of  Christianity  in  their  conduct  towards  other  men,  and 
who  steadfastly  refuse  through  whatever  consequences  to 
engage  in  acts  of  liostility,  will  experience  protection  in 
their  peacefulness. — And  it  matters  nothing  to  the  argu- 
ment, whether  we  refer  that  protection  to  the  immediate 
agency  of  Providence,  or  to  the  influence  of  such  conduct 
upon  the  minds  of  men.* 

COLONISATION   OF   PENNSYLVANIA. 

Such  has  been  the  experience  of  the  unoffending  and 
unresisting,  in  individual  life.  A  National  example  of  a 
refusal  to  bear  arms  has  only  once  been  exhibited  to  the 
world  :   but  that  one  example  has  proved,  so  far  as  its 

*  Ramond,  in  his  Travels  in  the  Pyrenees,  says  he  fell  in  from  time 
to  time  with  those  desperate  marauders  who  infested  tlie  boundaries  of 
Spain  and  Italy, — men  who  were  familiar  with  danger  and  robbery  and 
blood.  What  did  experience  teach  hmi  was  the  most  etlicient  means  of 
preserving  himself  from  injury?  To  go  "unarvied."  He  found  that  he 
had  "  httle  to  apprehend  from  men  whom  we  inspire  with  no  distnist 
nor  envy,  and  everything  to  expect  in  those  from  whom  we  claim  only 
what  is  due  from  man  to  man.  The  laws  of  nature  still  exist  for  tiiose 
who  have  long  shaken  off  the  law  of  civil  government."— "Tiie  assassin 
has  been  my  guide  in  the  defiles  of  the  boundaries  of  Italy ;  the 
smuggler  of  the  Pyrenees  has  received  me  with  a  welcome  in  his  secret 
paths.  Armed  I  should  have  been  the  enemy  of  both  :  unarmed  they 
have  alike  respected  me.  In  such  expectation  I  have  long  since  laid 
aside  all  menacing  apparatus  whatever.  Arms  irritate  the  wicked  and 
intimidate  the  simple  :  the  man  of  peace  amongst  mankind  lias  a  mucb 
more  sacred  defence — his  character." 


COLONISATION    OF    PENNSYLVANIA.  77 

political  circumstances  enabled  it  to  prove,  all  that  hu- 
manity could  desire,  and  all  that  scepticism  could  demand, 
in  favour  of  our  argument. 

It  has  been  the  ordinary  practice  of  those  who  have 
colonised  di-stant  countries  to  force  a  footing,  or  to  maintain 
it,  with  the  sword.  One  of  the  tirst  objects  has  been  to 
build  a  fort  and  to  provide  a  military.  The  adventurers 
became  soldiers,  and  the  colony  was  a  garrison.  Pennsyl- 
vania was  however  colonised  by  men  who  believed  that 
War  was  absolutely  incompatible  with  Christianity,  and 
who  therefore  resolved  not  to  practise  it.  Having  deter- 
mined not  to  light,  they  maintained  no  soldiers  and  possessed 
no  arms.  They  planted  themselves  in  a  country  that  was 
surrounded  by  savages,  and  by  savages  who  knew  they  were 
unarmed.  If  easiness  of  conquest,  or  incapability  of  defence, 
could  subject  them  to  outrage,  the  Pennsylvanians  might 
have  been  the  very  sport  of  violence.  Plunderers  might 
have  robbed  them  without  retaliation,  and  armies  might 
have  slaughtered  them  without  resistance.  If  they  did  not 
give  a  temptation  to  outrage,  no  temptation  could  be  given. 
But  these  were  the  people  who  possessed  their  country  in 
security,  whilst  those  around  them  were  trembling  for  their 
existence.  This  was  a  land  of  Peace,  whilst  every  other 
was  a  land  of  War.  The  conclusion  is  inevitable  although 
it  is  extraordinary  : — they  were  in  no  need  of  arms  because 
they  would  not  use  them. 

These  Indians  were  sufficiently  ready  to  commit  outrages 
upon  other  States,  and  often  visited  them  with  desolation 
and  slaughter  ;  with  that  sort  of  desolation,  and  that  sort 
of  slaughter,  which   might  be  expected  from  men  whom 


78         EFFECTS  OF  ADHERING  TO  MORAL  LAW. 

civilisation  had  not  reclaimed  from  cruelty,  and  whom  re- 
ligion had  not  awed  into  forbearance.  "But  whatever  the 
quarrels  of  the  Pennsylvauian  Indians  were  with  others," 
says  Clarkson  in  his  Life  of  Penn,  "  they  uniformly  re- 
spected and  held  as  it  were  sacred,  the  territories  of  William 
Penn."  The  same  writer  also  quotes  Oldmixon  as  saying  in 
1708,  "The  Pennsylvanians  never  lost  man,  woman,  or  child, 
by  Indians  ;  which  neither  the  colony  of  Maryland,  nor  that 
of  Virginia  can  say,  no  more  than  the  gi'eat  colony  of  New 
England." 

The  security  and  quiet  of  Pennsylvania  was  not  a  tran- 
sient freedom  from  War,  such  as  might  accidentally  happen 
to  any  nation.  "  She  continued  to  enjoy  it,"  says  Old- 
mixon, "  for  more  than  seventy  years  :  "  and,  says  Proud, 
"  subsisted  in  the  midst  of  six  Indian  nations,  without  so 
much  as  a  militia  for  her  defence."  "The  Pennsylvanians," 
says  Clarkson  again,  "  became  armed,  though  without  arms; 
they  became  strong,  thongli  without  strength;  they  became 
safe,  without  the  ordinary  means  of  .safety.  The  con- 
stable's staiT  was  the  only  instrument  of  authority  amongst 
them  for  the  greater  part  of  a  century,  and  never,  during 
the  administration  of  Penn,  or  that  of  his  proper  successors, 
was  there  a  quarrel  or  a  war." 

I  cannot  wonder  that  these  ])eople  were  not  molested, — 
extraordinary  and  unexampled  as  their  security  was.  There 
is  something  so  noble  in  this  perfect  confidence  in  the  Su- 
preme Protector,  in  this  utter  exclusion  of  "slavish  fear," 
in  this  voluntary  relinquishment  of  the  means  of  injur}^  or 
of  defence,  that  I  do  not  wonder  that  even  ferocity  could 
be  disarmed  by  such  virtue.     A  people  generously  living 


COLONISATION   OF    PENNSYLVANIA.  79 

without  arms  amidst  nations  of  warriors  !  Who  would 
attack  a  people  such  as  this  ?  There  are  few  men  so  aban- 
doned as  not  to  respect  such  confidence.  It  were  a  pecuHar 
and  an  unusual  intensity  of  wickedness  that  would  not  even 
revere  it. 

And  when  was  the  security  of  Pennsylvania  molested,  and 
its  peace  destroyed  ? — When  the  men  who  had  directed  its 
counsels  and  who  would  not  engage  in  War  were  outvotea 
in  its  legislature ;  when  they  who  supposed  that  there  wab 
greater  security  in  the  sivord  than  in  Christianity  became 
the  predominating  body.  From  that  hour  the  Pennsylvanians 
transferred  their  confidence  in  Christian  Principles  to  a  con- 
fidence in  their  arms  ; — and  from  that  hour  to  the  present 
they  have  been  subject  to  War.     [Clarkson's  Penn.^ 

Such  is  the  evidence,  derived  from  a  national  example,  of 
the  consequences  of  a  pursuit  of  the  Christinu  policy  in  re- 
lation to  War.  Here  are  a  people  who  absolutely  refused 
to  fight,  and  who  incapacitated  themselves  for  resistance  by 
refusing  to  possess  arms  :  and  these  were  the  people  whose 
land,  amidst  surrounding  broils  and  slaughter,  was  selected 
as  a  land  of  security  and  peace.  The  only  national  oppor- 
tunity which  the  virtue  of  the  Christian  world  has  afforded 
us,  of  ascertaining  the  safety  of  relying  upon  God  for  defence, 
has  determined  that  it  is  safe. 

CONFIDENCE  IN  THE  PROVIDENCE  OF  GOD. 

If  the  evidence  which  we  possess  does  not  satisfy  us  of  the 
expediency  of  confiding  in  God,  what  ev^idence  do  we  a.sk, 
or  what  can  we  receive  ?  We  havft  His  promise  that  He 
will  protect  those  who  abandon  their  seeming  interests  in 


80  EFFECTS  OF  ADHERING  TO    MORAL  LAW. 

the  performance  of  His  will ;  and  we  have  the  testimony  of 
those  who  have  confided  in  Him,  that  He  has  protected 
them.  Can  the  advocate  of  W^.r  produce  one  single  instance 
in  the  history  of  man  of  a  person  who  had  given  an  uncon- 
ditional obedience  to  the  will  of  Heaven,  and  who  did  not 
find  that  his  conduct  was  wise  as  well  as  virtuous,  that  it 
accorded  with  his  interests  as  well  as  with  his  duty  ?  We 
ask  the  same  question  in  relation  to  the  peculiar  obligations 
to  irresistance.  Where  is  the  man  who  regrets  that,  in 
observance  of  the  forbearing  duties  of  Christianity,  he  con- 
signed his  preservation  to  the  superintendence  of  God  ? — 
And  the  solitary  national  example  that  is  before  us  con- 
firms the  testimony  of  private  life ;  for  there  is  sufficient 
reason  for  believing  that  no  nation,  in  modem  ages,  has 
possessed  so  large  a  portion  of  virtue  and  of  happiness,  as 
Pennsylvania  before  it  had  seen  human  blood.  I  would 
therefore  repeat  the  question, — What  evidence  do  we  ask 
or  can  we  receive  ? 

This  is  the  point  from  which  we  wander  : — we  do  not 
BELIEVE  IN  THE  PROVIDENCE  OF  GOD.  When  this  statement 
is  formally  made  to  us,  we  think  perhaps  that  it  is  not  true ; 
but  our  practice  is  an  evidence  of  its  truth ;  for  if  we  did 
believe  we  should  also  confide  in  it,  and  should  be  willing 
to  stake  upon  it  the  consequences  of  our  obedience.*  We 
can  talk  with  sufficient  fluency  of  "trusting  in  Providence;" 
but  in  the  application  of  it  to  our  conduct  in  life,  we  know 

•  "  The  dread  of  being  destroyed  by  our  enemies  if  we  do  not  go  to 
war  with  them,  is  a  plain  and  unequivocal  proof  of  our  disbehef  in  the 
superintendence  of  Divine  Providence." — The  L'lwful nexs  of  Dffensivt 
War  impart  tally  considered.  By  a  Member  of  tlie  Church  of  Eng- 
land 


CONFIDENCE  IN  THE  PROVIDENCE  OF  GOD.       81 

wonderfully  little.  Who  is  he  that  confides  in  Providence, 
and  for  what  does  he  trust  Him  ?  Does  his  confidence  in- 
duce him  to  set  aside  his  own  views  of  interest  and  safety, 
and  simply  to  obey  Divine  precepts  even  if  they  appear  in- 
expedient and  unsafe  ?  This  is  the  confidence  that  is  of 
value,  and  of  which  we  know  so  little.  There  are  many  who 
believe  that  War  is  disallowed  by  Christianity  and  who 
would  rejoice  that  it  were  for  ever  abolished  ;  but  there  are 
few  who  are  willing  to  maintain  an  undaunted  and  un- 
yielding stand  against  it.  They  can  talk  of  the  loveliness 
of  Peace,  ay,  and  argue  against  the  lawfulne.>*s  of  War  ;  but 
when  difficulty  or  suffering  would  be  the  consequence,  they 
will  not  refuse  to  do  what  they  know  to  be  unlawful ;  they 
will  not  practise  the  peacefulness  which  they  say  they  ad- 
mire. Those  who  are  ready  to  sustain  the  consequences  of 
undeviating  obedience,  are  the  supporters  of  whom  Chris- 
tianity stands  in  need.  She  wants  men  who  are  willing 
to  suffer  for  her  principles. 

RECAPITULATION. 

The  positions  then  which  we  have  endeavoured  to  estab- 
lish are  these  : — 

I.  That  those  considerations  which  operate  as  general  Causes  of 
War,  are  commonly  such  as  Christianity  condemns. 

II.  That  the  effects  of  War  are,  to  a  very  great  extent,  prejudicial 
to  the  moral  character  of  a  people,  and  to  their  social  and  political 
welfare. 

III.  That  the  general  character  of  Christianity  is  wholly  incongruous 
with  War,  and  that  its  general  duties  are  incompatible  with  it. 

IV.  That  some  of  the  express  precepts  and  declarations  of  the 
Christian  Scriptures  virtually  forbid  it. 


82         EFFECTS  OF   ADHERING  TO   MORAL  LAW. 

V.  That  the  Primitive  Christians  l)elieved  that  Christ  had  forbidden 
War  ;  and  that  some  of  them  suffered  death  in  attirmance  of  tliis 
belief. 

VI.  That  God  has  declared  in  Prophecy,  that  it  is  His  will  that  War 
should  eventually  be  eradicated  from  the  earth  ;  and  that  this 
eradication  will  be  effected  by  Christianity,  by  the  influence  of  its 
present  principles. 

VII.  That  those  who  liave  refu.sed  to  engage  in  War,  in  consequence 
of  their  belief  that  it  is  inconsistent  with  Christianity,  have  found 
that  Providence  has  protected  them. 

N  o\v  we  think  that  the  establishment  of  any  considerable 
number  of  tliese  positions  is  sufficient  for  our  argument. 
The  establishment  of  the  whole,  forms  a  body  of  Evidence, 
which  must,  I  cannot  but  believe,  convince  any  inquirer,  to 
whom  the  subject  was  new.  But  since  such  an  inquirer 
cannot  be  found,  I  would  invite  the  reader  to  lay  prepos- 
session aside,  to  suppose  himself  to  have  now  first  heard 
of  battles  and  slaughter,  and  dispassionately  to  examine 
whether  the  evidence  in  favour  of  Peace  be  not  very  great, 
and  whether  the  objections  to  it  bear  any  proportion  to  the 
evidence  itself.  But  whatever  may  be  the  determination 
upon  this  question,  surely  it  is  reasonable  to  try  the  ex- 
periment, whether  security  cannot  be  maintained  without 
slaughter.  Whatever  be  the  reasons  for  War,  it  is  certain 
that  it  produces  enormous  mischief.  Even  waiving  the 
obli;;alions  of  Christianity,  we  have  to  chooise  between  evils 
that  are  certain  and  evils  that  are  doubtful ;  between  the 
actual  endurance  of  a  great  calamity,  and  the  possibility  of 
a  less.  It  certainly  cannot  be  proved  that  Peace  would  not 
be  the  best  policy  ;  and  since  we  know  tliat  the  present 
system  is  bad,  it  were  reasonable  and  wise  to  try  whether 


RECAPITULATION.  83 

the  other  is  not  better.  In  reality  I  can  scarcely  conceive 
the  possibility  of  a  greater  evil  than  that  which  mankind 
now  endures  ;  an  evil,  moral  and  physical,  of  far  wider  ex- 
tent, and  far  greater  intensity,  than  our  familiarity  with  it 
allows  us  to  suppose.  If  a  system  of  Peace  be  not  produc- 
tive of  less  evil  than  the  system  of  War,  its  consequences 
must  indeed  be  enormously  bad ;  and  that  it  would  produce 
such  consequences  we  have  no  warrant  for  believing,  either 
from  reason  or  from  practice, — either  from  the  principles  of 
the  moral  government  of  God,  or  from  the  exi)erience  of 
mankind.  Whenever  a  people  shall  pursue,  steadily  and 
uniformly,  the  pacific  morality  of  the  Gospel,  and  shall  do 
this  from  the  pure  motive  of  obedience,  there  is  no  reason 
to  fear  for  the  consequences:  there  is  no  reason  to  fear  that 
they  would  experience  any  evils  such  as  we  now  endure, 
or  that  they  would  not  find  that  Christianity  understands 
their  interests  better  than  they  do  themselves  ;  and  that 
the  surest  and  the  only  rule  of  wisdom,  of  safety,  and  of 
expediency,  is  to  maintain  her  spirit  in  every  circumstance 
of  life. 

"  There  is  reason  to  expect,"  says  Dr.  Johnson  in  his 
Falkland  Islands,  "that  as  the  world  is  more  enlightened, 
policy  and  morality  will  at  last  be  reconciled."  When  this 
enlightened  period  shall  arrive,  we  shall  be  approaching,  and 
we  shall  not  till  then  approach,  that  era  of  purity  and  of 
peace  when  "violence  shall  no  longer  be  heard  in  our  land, 
wasting  nor  destruction  within  our  borders  ;  " — that  era  in 
which  God  has  promised  that  "  they  shall  not  hurt  nor  de- 
stroy in  all  His  holy  mountain."  That  a  period  like  this 
will  come,  I  am  not  able  to  doubt  :  I  believe  it,  because  it 


84  EFFECTS  OF  ADHERING   TO   MORAL   LAW. 

is  not  credible  that  He  will  always  endure  the  butchery  oi 
man  by  man,  because  He  has  declared  that  He  will  not  en- 
dure it ;  and  because  I  think  there  is  a  perceptible  approach 
of  that  period  in  which  He  will  say — "  It  is  enough."  In 
this  belief  the  Christian  may  rejoice  ;  he  may  rejoice  that 
the  number  is  increasing  of  those  who  are  asking — "  Shall 
the  sword  devour  for  ever  ?  "  and  of  those  who,  whatever  be 
the  opinions  or  the  practice  of  others,  are  openly  saying,  "I 
am  for  Peace."     [Psalm  cxx.  7.] 

GENERAL   OBSERVATIONS. 

It  will  perhaps  be  asked,  What  then  are  the  duties  of  a 
subj<?ct  who  believes  that  all  War  is  incompatible  with  his 
religion,  but  whose  governors  engage  in  a  war  and  demand 
his  service  ?  We  answer  explicitly,  It  is  his  duty  mildly 
and  temperately,  yet  firmly,  to  refuse  to  serve. — Let  such  as 
these  remember,  that  an  honourable  and  a  most  solemn  duty 
is  laid  upon  them.  It  is  upon  their  fidelity,  so  far  as 
human  agency  is  concerned,  that  the  Cause  of  Peace  hangs. 
Let  them  then  be  willing  to  avow  their  opinions  and  to  de- 
fend them.  Neither  let  them  be  contented  with  words,  if 
more  than  words,  if  suffering  also,  is  required.  It  is  only  by 
the  unyielding  fidelity  of  virtue  that  corruption  can  be  ex- 
tArpated.  If  you  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  has  prohibited 
slaughter,  let  not  the  opinions  or  the  commands  of  a  world 
induce  you  to  join  in  it.  By  this  "  steady  and  determinate 
pursuit  of  virtue,"  the  benediction  which  attaches  to  those 
who  hear  the  .sayings  of  Cod  and  do  them,  will  rest  upon  you; 
and  the  time  will  come  when  even  the  world  will  honour 
you,  as  contributors  to  the  work  of  human  reformation. 


APPENDIX 


CHRISTIANITY   THE   TRUE   REMEDY   FOR 
WAR. 


OPINIONS  OF   EMINENT   MEN. 

JiisHOP  Fkaser. — "  War  is  not  the  triumph  of  righteousness.  It  is 
the  triumph  of  brute  force.  Can  anything  be  conceived  more  unchris- 
tian, more  irrational,  than  the  present  mode  by  which  international 
quarrels  are  commonly  adjusted  ^" 

Dr.  Chalmeks. — "The  mere  existence  of  the  prophecy,  'They  shall 
learn  War  no  more,'  is  a  sentence  of  condemnation  on  War.' 

Robert  Hall. — "  War  is  notliing  less  than  a  temporary  repeal  of 
the  principles  of  virtue." 

Sydney  Smith. — "  God  is  forgotten  in  War :  every  princqjle  of 
Christianity  is  trampled  upon." 

John  Wesley. — "yiiall  Christians  assist  the  Prince  of  Hell,  who 
was  a  murderer  from  the  beginning,  by  telling  the  world  of  the  hevefU 
or  the  need  of  War  ?  " 

Dr.  Adam  Clarke. — "  War  is  as  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  Christi- 
anity as  murder." 

Henry  Richard. — "  I  will  venture  to  say  this,  that  if  all  the  minis- 
ters of  Christ's  Gospel  were  with  one  voice,  constantly,  courageously, 
earnestly,  to  preach  to  the  nations  the  Truce  of  God,  and  were  to  de- 
nounce War,  not  merely  as  costly,  and  cruel,  and  barl)arous,  but  as 
essentially  and  eternally  unchristian,  another  War  in  the  civilized  world 
would  become  impossible." 

Lord  Carnarvon. — "  You  have  no  right  to  divorce  your  system  of 
politics  from  your  system  of  morals.  There  are  no  two  sides  to  that 
silver  sliield." 


66  APPENDIX. 

Duke  of  Wellington  (to  Lord  Shaftesbury). — "War  is  a  most 
detestable  tiling.  If  you  had  seen  but  one  day  of  War,  you  wou'd  pray 
God  that  you  might  never  see  another." 


INTERNATIONAL    ARBITRATION 
A    PRACTICAL    APPLICATION    OF   CHRISTIAN    PRINCIl»LE. 

OPINIONS  OF   EMINENT   MEN. 

Qrotius,  m  his  great  work,  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pads,  says  of  Arbi- 
tration : — "  Christian  kings  and  States  are  bound,  above  all  others,  to 
adopt  this  expedient  to  prevent  War.  Therefore,  it  would  be  useful, 
and  in  some  sort  necessary,  that  the  Christian  Powers  should  appoint 
some  body  in  which  the  disputes  of  any  States  might  be  settled  by  the 
judgment  of  the  others  which  are  not  interested." 

William  Penn  says: — "The  Princes  of  Europe  should  establish 
one  Sovereign  Assembly,  before  which  all  international  dilJ'erences 
should  be  brought,  which  cannot  be  settled  by  the  Embassies." — Essay 
on  the  Peace  of  Europe. 

Lord  Russell. — "On  looking  at  all  the  wars  which  have  been 
carried  on  during  the  last  century,  and  examining  into  the  causes  of 
them,  /  do  not  see  one  of  these  wars,  in  which,  if  there  had  been 
proper  temper  between  the  parties,  the  questions  in  dispute  might  not 
have  been  stttled  without  recourse  to  arm^," 

Earl  Derby  (when  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affiiirs,  1867). — 
"  Unhappily  there  is  no  International  Triliunal  to  which  cases  can  be 
referred,  and  there  Ls  no  International  Law  by  which  parties  can  be 
required  to  refer  their  disjjutes.  If  such  a  Tribunal  existed,  it  would 
be  a  ijreat  benefit  to  the  civilized  v}orld." 

Right  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone.—"  I  am  fully  convinced  that  there 
is  reserved  for  this  country  a  great  and  honourable  destuiy  in  connection 
with  this  subject.  If  we  are  to  lieoome  etlective  missionaries  of  these 
principles,  we  can  only  derive  authority  by  making  tliem  our  own,  and 
by  giving  to  them  practiral  etl'ect  liy  acting  on  the  principles  of  moder- 
ation, goodwill,  ami  justice.  If  we  do  so,  then  every  year  will  add  more 
and  more  weight  to  the  abstract  doctrines  we  ureach." 


APPENDIX.  87 

Sir  Stafford  Northoote  (when  Secretary  of  State).—"  It  is  our 
sincere  and  earnest  belief  that  the  interests  of  this  country  and  of  the 
whole  world  lie  in  the  direction  of  a  peaceful  instead  of  a  warlike 
policy.  We  firmly  believe  that  the  dirt'erences  between  nations  may 
best  be  settled  by  the  counsels  that  prevail  in  time  of  peace,  and  not 
iimidst  the  excitement  and  clash  of  War.'' 


Since  the  Peace  of  1815  there  have  been  about  sixty  instances 
Of  Arbitration  for  the  settlement  of  International  disputes,  some 
of  them  inuoluing  great  and  difficult  questions.  In  all  of  these 
cases   a  satisfactory  and  permanent  settlement   iv'as  effected. 


SOME    OP    THE    CONSEQUENCES    OF    THE 
MODERN    V7AR    SYSTEM. 


DESTRUCTION  OF  LIFE  FROM  WAR  IN  25  YEARS  (1855-80). 

Killed  in  hsitcle,  or  died 
of  wounds  and  disease. 

CRIMEAN  WAR 750,000 

Italian  War,  1859      45,000 

War  of  Schleswig-Holstein ,3,000 

AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR-the  North -JSO.OOO 

„                 „             „      —the  Soulli 520,000 

War  between  Prussia,  Austria,  and  Italy  in  186H  .  45,000 
Expeditions  to  Mexico,  Cocliin  Ciiina,  Morocco, 

Paraguay,  etc {55,000 

FRANCO-GERMAN  WAR  OF  1870-71  : 

-France           15.5,000 

—Germany        60,000 

RUSSIAN  AND  TURKISH  WAR  OF  1S77  .  225  000 

ZULU  AND  AFGHAN  WARS,  lbl9 40,000 


Total         2,188,000 

Killed  in  25  years  of  nineteenth  century  "civilization  !  " 
If  the  execution  of  two  or  three  crimhials  justly  excites  horror,  what 
should  be  the  feeling  produced  by  the  contemplation  of  such  an  awful 
sacrifice  of  human  life  in  millions  upon  millions,  and  often  amid  cir- 
cumstances of  unimaginable  horror. 


88  APPENDIX. 

THE  COST  OF   RECENT  WARS  (ISoS-SO). 

Crimean  War .?], 66(5,000,000 

Italian  War  of  1859 •2!)4,000,000 

American  Civil  War-North 4,60(i,000,000 

—South 2,-2o4,0()0,000 

Schleswig-Holstein  War         3-4,300,000 

Austrian  and  Prussian  War,  1866 323,400,000 

Expeditions  to  Mexico,  Morocco,  Paraguay, 

etc.  (say  only)       '     ."..  l!)(i,000,000 

Franco- Prussian  War            •2,450,000,000 

Russian  and  Turkish  War,  1877      1.0-2!»,(i00,000 

Zulu  and  Afuhan  Wars,  1879           147,000,000 


$12,999,700,000 


This  vast  sum  is  equal  to  §10  for  every  man,  wcmian,  and  child  in 
the  world  !  It  represents  a  mass  of  wasted  labour  and  money,  which 
might,  if  wisely  directed,  have  been  an  untold  blessing  to  the  nations. 

It  has  been  computed  that  the  actual  workers  in  Great  Britain,  even 
in  time  of  peace,  work  every  day  of  the  year  to  jiay  the  interest  of  the 
National  Debt,  twenty-six  minutes ;  for  the  maintenance  of  arma- 
ments, thirty  minutes  a  day  ;  for  the  cost  of  collecting  the  taxes,  four 
minutes  a  day  ;  for  the  relief  of  the  poor,  nine  minutes  a  day ;  for  local 
taxes,  nine  minutes  a  day ;  for  the  cost  of  civil  government,  twelve 
mirmtes  a  day.  Adding  these  together,  we  find  that  British  labourers 
work  every  day  of  the  year  one  hour  and  thirty  minutes,  or  nine  hours 
per  week,  for  the  payment  of  national  and  local  taxes.  Very  nearly 
two-thirds  of  this  time  is  occupied  in  producing  the  cost  of  the  War 
system,  that  is,  of  the  National  Debt  and  of  Armaments. 


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